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THE 

CABINET GALLERY 

AND COMPENDIUM 
OF 

SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMATIC WORKS 




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
( Ch^rvdos Portrait J 



THE 



Cabinet Gallery 

AND COMPENDIUM 

OF 

SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMATIC WOKKS 



Each Drama Illustrated and Briefly 
Outlined 




ed/Ted by 
GEO. A. SMITH, B. A. ^ 










7 •> 



Fifty-one Photogravures on Steel 





PHILADELPHIA 

GEBBIE & CO., Publishers 

1890 



7ft a ?! 
9oS 



Copyrighted, GrEBBiE & Co., 1890. 



PREFACE 

TT is the aim of the publishers to make this Com- 
pendium such a perfect summary of Shakespeare's 
Dramas as will enable the student to comprehend the 
whole plot of each play at a glance. This will be 
found a great advantage to the general reader, and will 
prove a still greater boon to the theatre-goer who may 
be about to witness on the stage one of Shakespeare's 
plays which he may not have read, or read so long ago 
as to need refreshing his memory thereon. Each 
drama will be treated separately. The following will 
be the method of treatment of each drama : 

1st. A historical notice of when the play was 
written, first printed, or first acted, and the sources 
from whence Shakespeare most probably drew his 
work. 

2d. The plot of the play summarized and the 
dramatis persona*, in this connection repeated in detail. 

3d. A few brief notes on the most prominent 
characters in each drama, to enable the reader more 



PEEFACE. 

readily to measure and estimate the relative impor- 
tance and position of the chief actors engaged. 

This arrangement for busy men and women will 
possess at least the recommendation of novelty, and 
we think will be found generally useful, when any 
play of Shakespeare is spoken of, to be able at a few 
minutes' notice to compass an understanding of all the 
chief characters and the plot of the drama. 

A separate Index of Characters will be found 
following the Compendium. We believe this is the 
first time that all the characters in Shakespeare's 
works have been brought together and registered each 
in their proper place. 

GrEBBIE & CO. 



CONTENTS. 



fcAGE 

(/'The Tempest 5 

/Two Gentlemen op Verona 10 

/Merry Wives of Windsor 15 

Twelfth Night 20 

j/Measure for Measure 26 

vMuch Ado About Nothing 32 

Midsummer-Night's Dream 39 

Love's Labor's Lost 43 

Merchant of Venice 47 

j/As You Like It 55 

All's Well that Ends Well 60 

Taming of the Shrew 66 

The Winter's Tale 71 

The Comedy of Errors 77 

\/ Macbeth 82 

King John 90 

i/King Richard II 97 

I/King Henry IV. Part 1 102 

t/KiNG Henry IV. Part II 106 

/King Henry V 112 

King Henry VI. Part 1 120 

King Henry VI. Part II 129 

King Henry VI. Part III 134 

King Richard III 138 

(1) 



2 CONTENT S. 

PAGE 

King Henry VIII 143 

Troilus and Ceessida . 147 

Timon op Athens 152 

Coriolanus 157 

^Julius C^sar 162 

y Antony and Cleopatea 168 

Cymbeline 173 

Titus Andronicus 181 

Pericles 185 

y King Lear 189 

Romeo and Juliet 197 

Hamlet 205 

\y Othello 213 

Index to Characters in Shakespeare's Dra- 
matic Wore:s 220 



PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

William Shakespeare (Chandos Portrait) Frontispiece.' 
Caliban, Stephano and Teinculo, 

The Tempest W. Von Kaulbach 5^ 

Ferdinand and Mieanda, , 

The Tempest W. Von Kaulbach 8 ' 

Me. Compton as Launce, 

Two Gentlemen of Verona Paine 10 y 

Ada Rehan and Miss Dreher as Mrs. Ford and 

Mrs. Page, Merry Wives of Windsor . Sarony 15 * 
Falstaff and Mrs. Ford, 

Merry Wives of Windsor E. Grutzner 17 */ 

Ellen Terry as Viola, 

Twelfth Night Window and Grove 20 v 

Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, etc., 

Twelfth Night E. Grutzner 23 u 

Angelo and Isabella, 

Measure for Measure A. Spiess 26 l/ 

Benedict and Beatrice, 

Much Ado About Nothing H. Merle 32^ 

Oberon and Titania, 

A Midsummer-Night's Dream . . Paul Thumann 39" 
Armado and Jaquenetta, 

Love's Labor's Lost A. Chappel 43 v 

Thomas Keene as Shylock, 

Merchant of Venice Sarony AT -J 

Mary Anderson as Rosalind, 

As You Like It Downey 55v 

Maurice Barrymore as Orlando, 

As You Like It Folk 57 

Bertram and the Countess (Farewell), 

All's Well That Ends Well F. Pecht 60 

Katherina and Petruchio, 

The Taming of the Shrew E. Grutzner 66 ^ 

Florizel and Perdita, The Winter's Tale G. Max 71 
Robson and Crane as the Two Dromios, 

Comedy of Errors Sarony 77 " 

Sleep-Walking Scene, Macbeth . W. Von Kaulbach 82 • 
Prince Arthur and Hubert, 

King John W. Von Kaulbach 90 ^ 

3 



4 PHOTOGKAVUKE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Mk. Macready as Richard II., 

King Richard II May all 97 " 

Chas. Fisher as Falstaff, 

First Part King Henry IV Sarony 102 v 

Falstaff and his Page, 

Second Part King Henry IV. . . . E. Grutzner 106 
Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, 

Second Part King Henry IV. . . . E. Grutzner 109 ■ 
King Henry, Katherine, etc., 

King Henry V F. Pecht 112^ 

Joan of Arc, The Dauphin, etc., 

First Part King Henry VI F. Pecht 120 

Jack Cade and Lord Say, 

Second Part King Henry VI N, Grose 129 

Warwick and King Edward, 

Third Part King Henry VI M. Adamo 134 

King Richard III., Act II., Scene IV. . i\ r . Grose 138 
King Henry VIII. and Anne Bullen, . A. Menzel 143 

Troilus and Cressida J. C. Armytage 147 

George Bennett as Apemantus, 

Timon of Athens Paine 152 

Mr.VandenhoffasCoriolanus .... Mayall 157 
Robert Downing as Marc Antony, 

Julius Caesar McMickael 162 i 

Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra . Wertheimer 168 

Death of Cleopatra A. Spiess 170 

Iachi.MO AND IMOGEN, Cynibeline . A. Liczcnmayer 173 
Ira Aldridge as Aaron, Titus Andronicus . Paine 18L 
Mariana, Pericles, Prince of Tyre . . . A. Chappel 1S5 

Edwin Forrest as King Lear Anthony 189 

Cordelia and King Lear A. Meckel 191 

Miss Wainwrtght as Juliet, 

Romeo and Juliet Sarony 197 

Maurice Barrymore as Romeo, 

Romeo and Juliet Gilbert and Bacon 200 

Romeo and Juliet, Act III., Scene V. . O. Vermehren 202 > 

Hamlet and Ophelia IT. Merle 205 

Charles Fechter as Hamlet Small 208 

Ophelia J. Wagrez 210 

Desdemona's Defence, Othello . . . Hugo Konig 213 
Mrs. F. Bernard-Beere as Desdemona, 

Othello Walter 215 - 

Edwin Booth as Iago, Othello .... Sarony 217 




CALIBAN. STEPHANO AND TRINGULO. 
77i e. Tempest.Jlebll Scene II. 



H1ST0BICAL SUMMARY OF THE TEMPEST. 



No one has hitherto been fortunate enough to dis- 
cover the romance, on which Shakespeare founded 
this play. Mr. Collins, the poet, issaid indeed to have 
informed Mr. T. Warton, that it was founded on an 
old romance called 'Aurelio and Isabella,' printed 
in Italian, Spanish, French and English in 1588 ; but 
as no such work could be discovered by the acute and 
learned writer to whom this information was com- 
municated, it was reasonably inferred by him, that 
Collins, in consequence of the failure of memory 
during his last illness, had substituted the name of one 
novel for another. 

It seems probable, that the event, which imme- 
diately gave rise to the composition of this drama, was 
the voyage of Sir George Somers, who was ship- 
wrecked on the Bermudas in 1 609, and whose adven- 
tures were given to the public by Silvester Jourdan, 
one of his crew, with the following title : ' A Dis- 
covery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of 
Divels : by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, 
and Captayne Newport, and divers others.' In this 
publication Jourdan informs us, that 'the islands of 
the Bermudas, as every man knoweth, that hath heard 
or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian 
or heathen people ; but ever esteemed and reputed a 
most prodigious and enchanted place, affording nothing 
but gusts, stormes and foul weather; which made 

(5) 



6 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

every navigator and mariner to avoid them as Scylla 
and Charybdis, or as they would shun the devil him- 
selfe. ' It has hence been concluded that this play was 
written towards the close of 1611, and that it was 
brought on the stage early in the succeeding year. 

Mr. Hunter says, there is an island in the Mediter- 
ranean named Lampedosa, which is near to the coast 
of Tunis, and from its description in Dapper, was the 
probable track of the King of Naples' voyage in 
Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' This island is known to 
sailors as the enchanted island, and if the Italian novel 
or its translations should ever be discovered, it will be 
found that this surmise is correct. 

It is remarked by Dr. Drake, that 'the 'Tempest' is, 
next to Macbeth, the noblest product of our author's 
genius. Never were the wild and the wonderful, the 
pathetic and the sublime, more artfully and gracefully 
combined with the sportive sallies of a playful imagi- 
nation, than in this enchantingly attractive drama. 
Nor is it less remarkable, that all these excellences of 
the highest order are connected with a plot, which, in 
its mechanism, and in the preservation of the unities, 
is perfectly classical and correct. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Alonso, king of Naples. 

Sebastian, his brother. 

Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan. 

Antonio, his brother, the usurping duke of Milan. 

Ferdinand, son to the king of Naples. 



THE TEMPEST. 



GrONZALO, an honest old counsellor of Naples. 

Adrian, | ^ 

Francisco, J 

Caliban, a savage and deformed slave, found by 

Prospero on the desert island. 
Trinculo, a jester. 
Stephano, a drunken butler. 
Master of a ship, Boatswain, and Mariners. 

Miranda, daughter to Prospero. 

Ariel, an airy spirit. 

Iris, 

Ceres, 

Juno, 

Nymphs, 

Keapers, 

Other spirits attending on Prospero. 

Scene, the sea, with a ship ; afterwards an uninhabited 
island. 



spirits. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Prospero, duke of Milan, being fond of study and 
retirement, intrusts the public business of the state 
to his younger brother Antonio, who secretly engages 
with Alonso, king of Naples, to hold Milan as a fief 
of the Neapolitan crown, in consideration of his as- 
sistance in dethroning his unsuspecting brother. Not 
daring publicly to deprive Prospero of life, on account 
of his great popularity, the conspirators force him 
and his daughter Miranda, an infant three years 



8 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

old, into a crazy boat ; and with a small supply of 
provisions abandon them to the fury of the ele- 
ments. Being cast on a desert island, where no 
human creature is found but a savage named Cali- 
ban, Prospero puts into practice the necromantic art, 
with which he had formerly experimented, with 
great success, and employed his leisure hours with 
the education of Miranda. About twelve years after 
these transactions, Alonso, having agreed to marry 
his daughter to the king of Tunis, conducts her to 
that country, accompanied by the usurping duke oi 
Milan, and a numerous train. Having left the 
lady with her husband at Tunis, they embark on 
their return to Naples ; and the drama commences 
with a great tempest raised by Prospero, who, by 
the agency of a spirit named Ariel, wrecks the 
king's ship in such a manner, that none of the pas- 
sengers are lost, and they are all landed on Prospero' s 
island. Ferdinand, the king's son, is separated from 
his father, who supposes him drowned ; while Pros- 
pero, discovering him after the shipwreck, conducts 
him to his cell, where he and Miranda become 
mutually enamored. In the mean time, Alonso, 
Antonio and their immediate followers, terrified by 
spectral illusions raised by the injured duke, run 
distracted, till at length, Prospero, satisfied with mak- 
ing them sensible of their former guilt, and with the 
resumption of his dignity, generously remits further 
punishment ; extends his mercy to Caliban and his 
drunken companions, who had conspired to murder 
him ; and, having restored Ferdinand to his dis- 
consolate parent, abjures forever the magic art, and 
proceeds to Naples to solemnize the nuptials of the 
youthful pair. Like the 'Midsummer Night's 




ON KAULBACH,p[MX. 



"ERDINAND AND MIRANDA. 

The ■'■ ■ ■/■■■ 'i ••' ' ■' ''■'■' -'• 



THE TEMPEST. 



Dream,' with which it has been classed, the 'Tem- 
pest ' is one of those romantic dramas, which defy 
analytical criticism, and would lose in effect by 
being subjected to a rigid examination of realities. 
Although the unities are preserved, perhaps more 
by accident than design, no play owes less allegiance 
to the exact sciences ; and the interest is not weak- 
ened by trivial incongruities in the author's conduct 
of time and space. A hag-born monster, a young 
lady educated by a magician prince in a desolate 
island, and an attendant spirit, capable of the 
assumption of any form, who not only treads the 
oose of the salt deep, runs on the sharp wind of the 
north, works in the frosted earth, and rides on the 
curled clouds, but in his lighter moods, rides on 
the bat's back, or reposes in a cowslip's bell, are 
singular materials for a drama, the simplicity of 
whose construction exhibits in strong outline the 
boundless skill by which it is made so irresistibly 
attractive. It required the genius of Shakespeare 
to reconcile these apparently discordant elements, 
and construct out of them an harmonious structure. 
If, however, the reader imagines a defect exists, 
and agreeing with some critics in the opinion that 
Ariel was not an 'ethereal featureless angel,' ob- 
serves an inconsistency in the development of his 
character, let us entreat him to merge it into the ro- 
mantic conduct of the plot, and regard the whole 
drama as a purely imaginative construction formed 
on the idea of retributive justice, to which no one 
but Shakespeare has made necromancy subservient, 
without in some degree injuring the cause of virtue. 



10 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE TWO GEN- 
TLEMEN OE VERONA. 



Mr. Steevens conjectures that some of the incidents 
of this play were taken by Shakespeare from the 'Ar- 
cadia,' book i. chap. 6, where Pyrocles consents to 
head the Helots ; to which tale the adventures of Valen- 
tine with the outlaws, in this drama, bear a striking 
resemblance. But however this question may be dis- 
posed of, there can be little doubt that the episode of 
Felismena, in the Diana of George of Montemayor, 
a romance translated from the Spanish, and published 
in the year 1598, was the source whence the principal 
part of the plot of the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' has 
been derived. The story of Proteus and Julia, in 
this play, closely corresponds with its prototype ; and 
in several passages the dramatist has copied the very 
language of the pastoral. 

The authenticity of this drama has been disputed 
by Hanmer, Theobald, and Upton, who condemn it as 
a very inferior production : but Dr. Johnson, in as- 
cribing it to the pen of Shakespeare, asks, ' if it be 
taken from him, to whom shall it be given ? ' justly 
remarking, that ' it will be found more creditable that 
Shakespeare might sometimes sink below his highest 
flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest. ' 
'It is observable,' says Pope, 'that the style of this 
comedy is less figurative, and more natural and un- 
affected, than the greater part of this author's, though 
supposed to be one of the first he wrote. ' 




■ W 49 1 



TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 11 

The 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' was not printed 
until it appeared in the folio of 1623, but is men- 
tioned in Meres' 'Wits' Treasury,' printed in 1598. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Duke of Milan, father to Silvia. 

Valentine, j tlemen of Verona . 

Proteus, J 

Antonio, father to Proteus. 

Thurio, a foolish rival to Valentine. 

Eglamour, agent for Silvia in her escape. 

Speed, a clownish servant to Valentine. 

Launce, servant to Proteus. 

Panthino, servant to Antonio. 

Host, where Julia lodges in Milan. 

Outlaws. 

Julia, a lady of Verona, beloved by Proteus. 
Silvia, the duke's daughter, beloved by Valentine. 
Lucetta, waiting-woman to Julia. 

Servants, Musicians. 

Scene, sometimes in Verona ; sometimes in Milan ; 
and on the frontiers of Mantua. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A young gentleman of Verona, named Valentine, after 
taking leave of his friend Proteus, visits the court 



12 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

of Milan, where lie becomes captivated by the 
charms of Silvia, the duke's daughter, who secretly 
favors his addresses, in preference to those of a rich 
suitor provided by her father. In the mean time, 
Proteus, who had become enamored of Julia, a 
Veronese lady, successfully prosecutes his suit, and 
obtains from his mistress assurances of mutual re- 
gard. The satisfaction of these lovers is soon inter- 
rupted by the young gentleman's father, who, igno- 
rant of his son's attachment, is anxious to send him 
to Milan, where Valentine still resides. After quit- 
ting Julia with professions of unalterable constancy, 
Proteus joins his friend, who receives him with the 
utmost tenderness ; confides to him the secret of his 
love ; and, having introduced him into the presence 
of Silvia, informs him of his intended elopement 
with her : but he has soon reason to repent his 
misplaced confidence ; for Proteus, a very inferior 
character, who by this time had forgotten his 
vows to Julia, and was resolved to supplant Valen- 
tine, treachei'ously informs the duke of his daugh- 
ter's proposed flight, which procures the banishment 
of Valentine and the imprisonment of Silvia. 
During this period, Julia, unable to endure the 
absence of her lover, travels to Milan in the dis- 
guise of a youth, and contrives to hire herself as a 
page to Proteus, whose perfidy she soon discovers. 
Silvia soon after effects her escape from confinement, 
but is overtaken in a forest by Proteus, who en- 
deavors to obtain her consent by threats of violence, 
when she is unexpectedly rescued by Valentine, 
whose life had recently been spared by a band of 
outlaws settled here, on condition of becoming their 
leader. The remonstrances of Valentine awaken 



TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 13 



the remorse of Proteus : he entreats forgiveness, 
which is readily granted him ; and Julia, having 
discovered herself, is united to her lover ; while the 
duke, after pardoning the outlaws and recalling 
them from exile, willingly consents to the nuptials 
of his daughter with Valentine. Speed and Launce, 
servants respectively to Valentine and Proteus, are 
droll fellows— Launce with his dog in the fourth act 
is a masterpiece of wit and funny invention. Mr. 
Halliwell says, "Although probably not quite the 
' first heir' of Shakespeare's dramatic invention, the 
'Two Gentlemen of Verona' exhibits a deficiency of 
effective situation, and to some extent a crudity of 
construction, which would most likely have been 
avoided by a practised writer for the stage. But 
these defects are unnoticed by the reader in the 
richness of its poetical beauties and overflowing 
humor ; its romance and pathos. The tale is based 
on love and friendship. Valentine is the ideal per- 
sonification of both, of pure love to Silvia, and 
romantic attachment to the friend of his youth. 
Proteus, on the contrary, selfish and sensual, suffers 
himself to be guided by his passions, and concludes 
his inconstancy to his love with perfidious treachery 
to his friend. Valentine, noble and brave, but timid 
before the mistress of his affections, adoring Silvia's 
glove, and too diffident even to interpret her strata- 
gem of the letter : Proteus, daring all, and losing 
his integrity, in the excess of a tumultuous passion. 
If Shakespeare has painted these elements in an out- 
line something too bold for the extreme refinement 
of the present day, the error must be ascribed to his 
era, not to himself ; and if it be also objected to in 
this play, that the female characters are germs only 



14 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

of more powerful creations in ' Twelfth Night' or 
1 Cyrnbeline,' the reader must bear in mind they are 
perhaps more suitable to the extreme simplicity of 
the story, that the chief object of the dramatist 
is directed to the development of the characters of 
Valentine and Proteus, and, above all, that the 
play should be judged by itself. There are few, in- 
deed, who would be willing to miss the ' Two Gen- 
tlemen of Verona,' for it is, nevertheless, a gem, 
though it may not shine quite as brilliantly as some 
others in the Shakesperian cabinet. ' ' 




ADA REHANAND ::iS3 DREHER ASMRS.FORD AND MRS.PAGE. 
Merry '"v.. of 'WirtcLsor ,J2ct ZZ.Scen&I. 



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 15 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE MERRY 
WIVES OF WINDSOR. 



An old translation of 'II Pecorone,' by Giovanni 
Florentino, is supposed to have furnished Shakes- 
peare with some of the incidents of this comedy. 

Mr. Rowe informs us that Queen Elizabeth was so 
well pleased with the admirable character of Falstaff 
in the two parts of Henry IV. that she commanded 
our author to continue it for one play more, and to 
show him in love ; a task which he is said to have 
completed in a fortnight, to the admiration of his 
royal patroness, who was afterwards very well pleased 
at the representation. This information, it is prob- 
able, came originally from Dryden, who, from his 
intimacy with Sir William Davenant, had an opportu- 
nity of learning many particulars concerning Shakes- 
peare. Mr. Chalmers has endeavored to set aside the 
general tradition relative to this comedy, but does not 
appear to have succeeded. 

Speaking of this play, Dr. Johnson remarks that 
'no task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of 
another. Shakespeare knew what the queen, if the 
story be true, seems not to have known ; — that by any 
real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the care- 
less jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have 
suffered so much abatement that little of his former 
cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love 
but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counter- 
16 



16 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



feit love ; and his professions could be prompted, not 
by the love of pleasure, but of money. Thus the 
poet approached as near as he could to the work en- 
joined him : yet having, perhaps, in his former plays 
completed his own idea, seems not to have been able 
to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment. 
This comedy was not printed in its present form till 
1 623, when it was published with the rest of Shakes- 
peare's plays in the folio edition. An imperfect copy 
had been printed in 1602. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Sir John Falstaff. 

Fenton, a young gentleman in love with Anne Page. 

Shallow, a country justice. 

Slender, cousin to Shallow. 

M ' Papf' I tw0 S ent ^ emen dwelling at Windsor. 

William Page, a boy, son to Mr. Page. 

Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson. 

Dr. Caius, a French physician. 

Host of tbe Garter Inn. 

Rardolph, "J 

Pistol, I followers of Falstaff. 

Nym, J 

Robin, page to Falstaff. 

Simple, servant to Slender. 

Rugby, servant to Dr. Caius. 

Mrs. Ford, 



Mrs. Ford, ) . 

Mrs. Page, } ^e merry wives. 



THE MEREY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 17 

Mrs. Anne Page, her daughter, in love with Fenton. 
Mrs. Quickly, servant to Dr. Caius. 

Servants to Page, Ford, etc. 

Scene, Windsor, and the parts adjacent. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The vanity of Sir John Falstaff having misinterpreted 
the hospitable attentions of two ladies (The Merry 
Wives) at Windsor into an admiration for his per- 
son, he resolves to profit by his good fortune, but is 
betrayed by some discarded domestics (Pistol and 
Bardolph) who revenge their dismissal by revealing 
their master's designs to the husbands of his mis- 
tresses. Page disregards the information altogether ; 
while Ford, who had, for some time past, entertained 
unfounded suspicions of his wife's honor, resolves 
to ascertain the truth of the information. For this 
purpose, under the assumed name of Brook, he 
causes himself to be introduced to Falstaff, whom 
he artfully draws into the confession of an assigna- 
tion which he had just before made with mistress 
Ford, who in the meantime had conspired with her 
friend to punish the knight for his infamous propo- 
sals. Ford, supposing that he has sufficiently de- 
tected the infidelity of his wife, assembles his neigh- 
bors, in order to surprise Falstaff at the appointed 
interview : he is, however, conveyed away, by the 
contrivance of the two wives, in a basket with foul 



18 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

linen, and thrown into the Thames, where he nar- 
rowly escapes drowning. The suspicions of Ford 
are now somewhat abated ; but when he again re- 
pairs to Falstaff as Brook, and learns the deception 
that has been practised on him, and the arrange- 
ments which have been made by his wife for a second 
visit from her admirer, his fury rekindles ; he again 
solicits his friends to accompany him home, whence 
Falstaff again escapes in the disguise of an old witch, 
though not without suffering a severe cudgelling at 
the hands of the enraged Ford as a fortune-teller. 
A third assignation is now made with him in Wind- 
sor forest at midnight, where Falstaff, representing 
the spirit of Heme the huntsman, with horns on 
his head, having agreed to assume this disguise 
for a meeting with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, is 
severely pinched by the accomplices of the plot, 
in the garb of fairies and hobgoblins ; when the 
husbands, who are now made acquainted with the 
intention of their wives, rush from the place of 
their concealment ; and, having sufficiently exposed 
and derided him, forgive him. The remainder of 
this comedy is occupied by the rivalry of Slender 
and Caius, for the hand of Page's daughter Anne, 
who prefers a young gentleman named Fenton, 
whom she marries. Mr. Singer says, "the bustle 
and variety of the incidents, the rich assemblage of 
characters, and the skilful conduct of the plot of 
this delightful comedy, are unrivalled in any drama, 
ancient or modern. Falstaff, the 'inimitable Fal- 
staff, here 'lards the lean earth,' a butt and a wit, 
a humorist, and a man of humor, a touchstone and 
a laughing-stock, a jester and a jest — the most per- 
fect comic character that ever was exhibited.' The 



THE MEREY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 19 

jealous Ford, the uxorious Page, and their two 
merry wives are admirably drawn ; Sir Hugh Evans 
and Dr. Caius no less so, and the duel scene between 
them irresistibly comic. The swaggering jolly Bon- 
iface, mine host of the Garter ; and last, though not 
least, Master Slender and his cousin Shallow, are 
such a group as were never yet equalled by the pen 
or pencil of genius." 



20 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTOKICAL SUMMARY OF 'TWELFTH 
NIGHT.' 



The comic scenes of this play appear to have been 
entirely the production of our author ; while the serious 
part is founded on a story in the fourth volume of 
'Bellefo rest's Histoires Tragiques,' which he took from 
Bandello. Malone, however, is of opinion that the 
plot of this comedy was rather derived from the 
'Historie of Apolonius and Silla ;' which tale is to he 
found in a collection, by Barnaby Rich, whicb first 
appeared in the year 1583. But little doubt can re- 
main of the identity of the story of Bandello with the 
incidents of 'Twelfth Night,' after a perusal of the 
comparison of both compositions from the pen of Mrs. 
Lennox : — 

' Sebastian and Viola, in the play, are the same with 
Paolo and Nicuola in the novel : both are twins, and 
both remarkably like each other. Viola is parted from 
her brother by a shipwreck, and supposes him to be 
drowned ; Nicuola loses her brother at the sacking of 
Rome, and for a long time is ignorant whether he is 
alive or dead. Viola serves the duke, with whom she 
is in love, in the habit of a page ; Nicuola, in the same 
disguise, attends Lattantio, who had forsaken her for 
Catella. The duke sends Viola to solicit his mistress 
in his favor ; Lattantio commissions Nicuola to plead 
for him with Catella. The duke's mistress falls in 




VIT1DPW *: GROVE. 



ELLEN TERRY AS VIOLA. 
■• r't/v JVigJvt., ~'2ct /I., Sceroe- II . 



TWELFTH NIGHT. 21 

love with Viola, supposing her to be a man ; and 
Catella, by the like mistake, is enamored of Nicuola : 
and, lastly, the two ladies in the play, as well as in the 
novel, marry their lovers whom they had waited on in 
disguise, and their brothe :s wed the ladies who had 
been enamored of them.' 

Mr. Collier and Mr. Hunter almost simultaneously 
discovered, in a manuscript diary of a student of the 
Middle Temple, among the Harleian Manuscripts, 
dating from 1601 to 1603, the following passage, 
which shows that all previous speculations, with regard 
to the date of the composition of this play, had 
assigned it to too late a period : — 

"Feb. 2, 1601 [2.] 
"At our feast, wee had a play called Twelve Night, 
or What You Will. Much like the Comedy of Errors, 
or Menechuri in Plautus ; but most like and neere to 
that in Italian called Ingauni. A good practice in it 
to make the steward believe his lady widowe was in 
love with him, by counterfayting a letter as from his 
lady in general terms, telling him what she liked best 
in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his 
apparraile, etc., and then when he came to practice 
making him believe they took him to be mad," etc. 

Mr. Hunter by unwearied investigation, and an in- 
genious inductive process, ascertained that the writing 
of the diary was that of John Manningham, who was 
entered of the Middle Temple in 1597. 

The play had most probably been publicly acted 
before this private performance, at the Candlemas 
feast of the Middle Temple in 1601-2 ; and from the 
absence of it in the list of Shakespeare's plays enunier- 



22 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

ated by Meres in 1598, the inference is that it was 
composed in 1599 or 1600. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Orsino, duke of Illyria, in love with Olivia. 
Sebastian, a young gentleman, brother to Viola. 
Antonio, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian. 
A Sea Captain, friend to Viola. 

Valentine, j gentlemen attending on the duke. 

Curio, J 

Sir Toby Belch, uncle of Olivia. 

Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, boon companion of Sir 

Toby. 
Malvolio, steward to Olivia. 
Fabian, j servants to 01ivia> 
Clown, ) 

Olivia, a rich countess. 
Viola, in love with the duke. 
Maria, Olivia's woman. 

Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other 
Attendants. 

Scene, a city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Sebastlin and Viola, twin children of a gentleman 










i MS r OLIO. S IR 1 '; ■ 



TWELFTH NIGHT. 23 



of Messaline, and remarkable for an exact resem- 
blance of features, being deprived of botb their 
parents, quit their native country : they are en- 
countered at sea by a violent tempest, which ^ de- 
stroys the vessel and most of the crew, while Viola, 
the captain, and a few passengers betake themselves 
to the boat, which conveys them in safety to the sea- 
coast of Illyria. The lady, thus deprived of her 
brother, clothes herself in male attire, and enters 
into the service of Prince Orsino, who is at this 
time engaged in the unsuccessful pursuit of a neigh- 
boring lady, named Olivia. The talents of the dis- 
guised page soon render her so great a favorite of 
her master, that she is selected to intercede with the 
obdurate Olivia ; who, though deaf to the solicita- 
tions of the prince, is seized with a sudden passion 
for the messenger, which meets with a repulse. 
Viola, on her return home, is waylaid by Sir Andrew 
Ague-cheek, a foolish suitor of Olivia, favored by 
her uncle, Sir Toby Belch, who persuades him to 
challenge the youth, in order to beget in his mistress 
a favorable opinion of his courage. Viola, as may 
well be supposed, is averse to a rencontre of this de- 
scription ; when she is rescued from her embarrass- 
ment by the arrival of a sea captain, who, having 
saved her brother Sebastian from the wreck, had 
since supplied him with considerable sums of money 
for his exigencies ; but, in consequence of an unex- 
pected arrest, is compelled to solicit a moiety of the 
loan : he accordingly applies to Viola, believing that 
he is addressing his friend Sebastian ; and, when she 
denies all knowledge of his person, reproaches her 
with her ingratitude. In the meantime, Sebastian 
arrives ; and the foolish knight, with his confederate, 



24 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

supposing him to be the page of Orsino, who had 
before declined the combat, assault him ; but their 
violence is repaid with interest, and the combatants 
are parted by Olivia, whose advances to the supposed 
page are now received with mutual affection, and 
they are married without delay. Viola, arriving 
soon after with her master at the house of Olivia, 
is mistaken by the lady for her husband, by whose 
appearance the mystery is at length cleared up, and 
Viola is united to the prince. The bye-play of the 
pranks of Maria, the waiting-maid of Viola, and 
Sir Toby Belch with Malvolio, the major-domo of 
Viola's household, is one of the brightest bits of 
fun in Shakespeare's works. In the character of 
Malvolio some of the best Shakespearian actors have 
appeared, among others Charles Barron and Henry 
Irving. What is the subject of the comedy ? Love : 
the Duke's love for Olivia — the love of Viola for the 
Duke — the new-born love of Olivia for the disguised 
Viola ; and there is a sly penchant growing between 
Sir Toby and Maria — they are assimilated together 
by their love of fun ; and Malvolio's ridiculous love 
for his mistress Olivia. The artist is not seen 
endeavoring to force a catastrophe : the characters 
fall into their places with a natural ease and grace, 
as if they wese our veritable neighbors, and we 
already knew all about them. A noble-natured lady, 
mourning for her brother's death, will not for grief 
listen to the manly and ardent wooing of the Duke, 
and Viola, 'beautiful exceedingly,' whose heart has 
become a shrine, where in turn love for the Duke 
burns with a calm, undecaying constancy, yet having 
little or no hope of return, so that when we hear her 
urging Orsino's suit into Olivia's unwilling ears, we 



TWELFTH NIGHT. 25 

sympathize the more strongly with her, knowing 
that all this time runs a trembling through her 
voice, which speaks more of suffering than could 
many complaining words. There is a magic in it, 
too, for all that ; and even the cold Olivia feels it as 
the tones fall around her heart, and she, that could 
not, or would not love, for very excess of grief, now 
loves in despite of it, as 'twere against her will ; and 
we see that she had not forgotten her woman's wit 
and tact, when she sends Malvolio after the ' peevish 
messenger ' with her ring. Illyria is a warm and 
sunny clime, peculiarly so at the bright ' season of 
the year,' when love most rejoices, and smiles in 
the bright and beauteous face of nature with a 
serener joy. The comedy is rich, hearty, rollicking, 
abandoned ; actually glorious in its wild, mad 
revelry. 



26 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'MEASURE 
FOR MEASURE.' 



The primary source of the fable of this play is to 
be traced to a story in the Ecatorumithi of Giraldi 
Cinthio, which was repeated in the tragic histories of 
Belleforest ; but Shakespeare's immediate original was 
the play of 'Promos and Cassandra' of George Whet- 
stone, published in 1578. 'This story,' says Mr. 
Steevens, 'which, in the hands of Whetstone, pro- 
duced little more than barren insipidity, under the 
culture of Shakespeare, became fertile of entertain- 
ment. The old play of ' Promos and Cassandra ' exhib- 
its an almost complete embryo of ' Measure for Meas- 
ure ; ' yet the hints on which it is formed are so slight, 
that it is nearly as impossible to detect them as it is to 
point out in the acorn the future ramifications of the 
oak.' 

Dr. Johnson, speaking of this play, says, ' 1 cannot 
but suspect that some other had new-modelled the 
novel of Cinthio, or written a story, which in some 
particulars resembled it, and that Cinthio was not the 
author whom Shakespeare immediately followed. The 
emperor in Cinthio is named Maximine : the duke, in 
Shakespeare's enumeration of the persons of the 
drama, is called Vincentio. This appears a very slight 
remark ; but since the duke has no name in the play, 
nor is ever mentioned but by his title, why should he 
be called Vincentio among the persons but because the 




£ ^ 



MEASUKE FOR MEASUEE. 27 

name was copied from the story, and placed super- 
fluously at the head of the list by the mere habit of 
transcription? It is therefore likely that there was 
then a story of Vincentio, duke of Vienna, different 
from that of Maximine, emperor of the Romans. 

' Of this play, the light or comic part is very natural 
and pleasing ; but the grave scenes, if a few passages 
be excepted, have more labor than elegance. The plot 
is rather intricate than artful.' 

Malone concludes that ' Measure for Measure ' was 
written in 1603-1604. In the latter year it was first 
performed by 'His Majesty's Players' at Whitehall. 
It was first printed in the folio edition of 1623. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Vincentio, duke of Vienna. 

Angelo, lord deputy in the duke's absence. 

Escalus, an ancient lord, joined with Angelo in the 

deputation. 
Claudio, a young gentleman. 
Lucio, a fantastic. 
Two other like Gentlemen. 
Varrius,* a gentleman, servant to the duke. 
Provost. 
Thomas, ) 

Peter, } two fnars - 
A Justice. 

* Varrius might be omitted, for he is only once spoken to, 
and says nothing in reply. 



28 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Elbow, a simple constable. 
Froth, a foolish gentleman. 
Clown, servant to Mrs. Over-done. 
Abhorson, an executioner. 
Barnardine, a dissolute prisoner 

Isabella, sister to Claudio. 
Mariana, betrothed to Angelo. 
Juliet, beloved by Claudio. 

Francisca, a nun, with whom Isabella is as a no- 
vitiate. 
Mrs. Over-done, a bawd. 

Lords, Gentlemen, Guards, Officers, and other 
Attendants. 

Scene, Vienna. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Vincentio, duke of Vienna, anxious to reform the 
laxity of public morals, which too great remissness 
on the part of his government had introduced, in- 
vests Angelo, an officer renowned for rigid justice, 
with unlimited authority during his pretended ab- 
sence ; and, having assumed the habit of a friar, is 
enabled in this disguise to view attentively the pro- 
ceedings of his deputy. A young lady of the city, 
named Juliet, proves pi'egnant by her betrothed 
lover, Claudio, who, according to an old penal enact- 
ment, is sentenced bj^ the severe governor to lose 
his head. Isabella, the sister of the culprit, inter- 



MEASURE FOE MEASURE. 29 



cedes for the life of her brother with Angelo, who 
becomes deeply enamored with her, and proposes 
her dishonor as the price of his compliance with her 
petition. The virtuous maiden spurns the prof- 
fered terms, and flies to Claudio, to whom she re- 
lates the perfidy of the governor, exhorting him to 
submit to his fate with fortitude ; but the fear of 
death overpowers his resolution, and he implores his 
sister to yield to the solicitations of the deputy, 
which request she rejects with abhorrence. In the 
meantime the disguised duke has become acquainted 
with Mariana, a lady formerly affianced to Angelo, 
who is persuaded to keep a private assignation with 
her husband (Angelo), which Isabella has feigned to 
make in her own name, to secure the safety of her 
brother. The inhuman tyrant, supposing that he 
has now achieved his object, and dreading the 
vengeance of the injured Claudio, determines to dis- 
regard his promise of mercy, and sends orders to 
the prison for his immediate execution. The duke 
now pretends to return from his travels, and Angelo 
is publicly convicted of murder and seduction both 
by Isabella and his master ; and is about to suffer 
the punishment of his crimes, when the entreaties 
of his deserted wife, and the unexpected appear- 
ance of Claudio, who had been rescued from death 
by the interposition of the disguised duke, preserves 
him from the fate which he has so justly merited. 
As a relief to the more serious business of the play 
there are amusing scenes in which Froth, Elbow, a 
cldwn, and others perform delightful low comedy. 
Mr. Halliwell says : ' I think it will be found a 
serious error has been committed by nearly all who 
have treated on the play, in estimating the extent 



30 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

of the crime for which Claudio was condemned. 
Ulrici says he had ' seduced his mistress before 
marriage.' This is, however, erroneous. In Shakes- 
peare's time the ceremony of betroth ment was 
usually supposed to confer the power of matrimonial 
union. Claudio obtained possession of Julietta on 
' a true contract ; ' and provided marriage was cel- 
ebrated within a reasonable time afterwards, no 
criminality could be alleged after the contract had 
been formally made. So, likewise, the duke tells 
Mariana it was no sin to meet Angelo, for he was 
her ' husband on a pre-contract. ' The story would 
be more properly analyzed by representing Claudio' s 
error as venial and Angelo's strictness so much the 
more severe, thus involving a greater antithesis in 
his fall. The only painful scene in the plaj' is the 
subject of the argument between Angelo and Isa- 
bella ; but Shakespeare is not to be blamed for the 
direction it takes. On the contrary, he has infinitely 
purified a barbarous tale which the taste of the age 
authorized as a subject of dramatic representation. 
The scenes between the lower characters would have 
been readily tolerated by a female audience in the 
time of the first James, and although they must now 
be passed over, we can hardly censure the poet for 
not foreseeing the extreme delicacy of a later age. 
The offences chiefly consist of a few gross words, 
which no one but literary antiquarians will compre- 
hend, and are purposely left without explanation. 
Bearing in mind that the improprieties of language 
above alluded to are faults of the age, not of the 
poet's judgment, and that a similar apology may be 
advanced for the choice of subject, the moral con- 
veyed by ' Measure for Measure ' is of a deeply relig- 



MEASURE FOE MEASURE. 31 

ious character. It exhibits in an outline of won- 
derful power how ineffective are the strongest reso- 
lutions against the insidious temptation of beauty, 
when they are not firmly strengthened and guarded 
by religion. The prayers of Angelo came from his 
lips, not from his heart, and he fell. Isabella, on 
the contrary, is preserved by virtue grounded on 
religious faith. Her character is presented as 
nearly approaching perfection as is consistent with 
possible reality ; and we rejoice that such a being 
should be snatched from the gloomy cloister to exer- 
cise her mild influence in a more useful station. 
The minor characters complete the picture of one 
of the chief phases of human life, the conflict of 
incontinence and chastity.' 
17 



32 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'MUCH ADO 
AROUT NOTHING.' 



A story in some respects similar to this drama may 
be found in the fifth book of 'Orlando Furioso,' and 
likewise in the second book of ' Spenser's Fairy Queen ; : 
but it is most probable that Shakespeare derived the 
principal incident of this comedy from a version of 
Relleforest, who copied the Italian novelist Randello. 
In the 22d tale of the first part of Randello, and the 
18th history of the third volume of Relleforest, a story 
is related, the events of which nearly resemble those 
attendant on the marriage of Claudio and Hero. 

As this play was printed in quarto in 1600, and is 
not mentioned by Meres in his list of Shakespeare's 
works published about the end of 1598, Mr. Malone 
conjectures that the year 1600 may be accurately 
assigned as the time of its production. It is reported 
to have been formerly known under the name of 
'Renedick and Beatrice.' 

'This play,' says Steevens, 'may be justly said to 
contain two of the most sprightly characters that Shake- 
speare ever drew. The wit, the humorist, the gentle- 
man, and the soldier are combined in Renedick. It 
is to be lamented, indeed, that the first and most 
splendid of these distinctions is disgraced by unneces- 
sary profaneness ; for the goodness of his heart is 
hardly sufficient to atone for the license of his tongue. 
The too sarcastic levity which flashes out in the con- 
versation of Reatrice may be excused on account of the 




BENEDICK AND Bl 
Micch Ado AhoiU JVothzruy, .-/■■/ //.". Scr-yw /. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 33 

steadiness and friendship to her cousin, so apparent in 
her behavior, when she urges her lover to risk his life by 
a challenge to Claudio. ' Heminge, the player, received 
on the 20th of May, 1613, the sum of £40 and £20 
more as his Majesty's gratuity for exhibiting six plays 
at Hampton Court, among which was this comedy. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Don Pedro, prince of Arragon. 
Don John, his bastard brother. 
Claudio, a young lord of Florence, favorite to Don 

Pedro. 
Benedick, a young lord of Padua, favorite likewise of 

Don Pedro. 
Leonato, governor of Messina. 
Antonio, his brother. 
Balthazar, servant to Don Pedro. 

BORACHIO, 1 followerg of Don John _ 
CONRADE, ) 

Dogberry, | twQ fooligh officers> 
Verges, ) 
A Sexton. 
A Friar. 
A Boy. 

Hero, daughter to Leonato. 
Beatrice, niece to Leonato. 

Margaret, j gentlewomen attending on Hero. 
Ursula, ) 

Messengers, Watch, and Attendants. 

Scene, Messina. 



34 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Leonato, a gentleman of Messina, has an only daugh- 
ter named Hero, whose beauty and accomplishments 
captivate the affections of count Claudio, a favorite 
of the prince then on a visit to her father, who 
willingly gives his consent to a union so promising. 
In the meantime, Don John, a natural brother of 
the prince, who has long viewed the elevation of 
Claudio with a eye of jealousy, accuses the lady of 
inconstancy ; and, in confirmation of his assertion, 
introduces his brother and his friend to her chamber 
window at midnight : the artifice of an attendant 
of Don John, named Borachio, who contrives to 
address the waiting-maid stationed at the window by 
the name of Hero, appears to leave no room for 
doubt, and the enraged lover repudiates his affianced 
bride at the very moment of the nuptials : Hero 
faints ; and, by the advice of the friar, a false report 
of her death is circulated. During the progress of 
these events Borachio reveals the success of his 
machinations to a fellow-servant whom he meets in 
the street, and their conversation is overheard by 
the watch, who convey the culprits to Leonato' s 
house, where a full confession is made by the re- 
pentant Borachio. Claudio now entreats forgive- 
ness from the insulted father, which is granted on 
the condition of his union with a cousin of his 
injured mistress, whose face he is not permitted to 
behold till the completion of the marriage ceremony, 
when his happiness is made perfect by finding him- 
self the husband of the innocent Hero. A very 
prominent part of this play is occupied with the 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 35 

deception which is practised to betray Benedick and 
Beatrice, two rival wits and professed marriage- 
haters, into a mutual passion for each other, which 
is at length accomplished, and they are both content 
to renounce their prejudices against marriage. Dog- 
berry and Verges vary the notes of comedy by in- 
imitable folly and pretension. 
It is not unworthy of remark, that Shakespeare's 
muse appears to be more inventive in comedy than 
in tragedy. In the latter, he has usually seized upon 
some well-known story for his plot ; but his comedies 
often are traceable to no source whatever, other than 
his own wonderful genius, which seems to enjoy and 
revel in wild rollicking fun and mad-cap diversion. 
In ' Much Ado About Nothing ' he descends to broad 
farce with our learned friend Dogberry, who assures 
us that he is ' a wise fellow ; and, which is more, an 
officer ; and, which is more, an householder ; and, 
which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in 
Messina ; and one that knows the law-go to ; and a 
rich fellow enough-go to ; and a fellow that hath had 
losses ; and one that hath two gowns, and everything 
handsome about him.' And his fellow-officer, the 
feeble old Verges, who is, indeed, verging upon the 
edge of the grave, but yet still clings to his parochial 
dignity and gives his concurrence to the wise con- 
clusions of his friend Dogberry, and thanks God that 
he is ' as honest as any man living, that is an old man, 
and no honester than he .' Then from this merriment 
we are transported, without effort, to the interior of 
the church, with its solemn sepulchral statuary, its 
heraldic emblazonment, and its funereal-looking ban- 
ners ; where stands the monument which is supposed 
to cover the corpse of Hero. Here, at midnight, enters 



36 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

the repentant Claudio, preceded by attendants with 
dim -burning tapers, and sad music, to — 

' Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb, 
And sing it to her bones.' 

Indeed the serious portion of this play is exquisitely 
conceived, the disgrace of the gentle Hero by her 
lover's casting her off, and branding her with infamy, 
even within the holy precincts of the church, where 
he should have taken her to his heart; the astonish- 
ment of the guests, and that of Benedick, who ex- 
claims : — 

' This looks not like a nuptial ; ' 

and the hysterical answer of the terror-stricken girl : 
' True, God ! ' would be altogether too tragic for 
introduction into a comedy, but that the spectator 
knows that the discovery of her innocence is already 
made, although not yet revealed to her lover and her 
friends. The agony and shame of her aged father 
are painted in a manner worthy of our poet. 
The discovery of the villany of Don John, who has 
caused all the sorrow, is remarkable ; Shakespeare 
never omits an opportunity of illustrating his 
favorite doctrine of the omnipresence of a jealous 
Providence, which works through common means and 
unsuspected channels, and returns to all men good for 
good, evil for evil. It is most true 

'Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well 

When our deep plots do pall ; and that should teach us, 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends 

Rough-hew them how we will.' 

For what the wisdom of Leonato, Claudio, and the 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 37 

rest could not discover, was dragged from pitchy 
darkness, and revealed in the full blaze of day by the 
foolish and imbecile constables of the watch, Dog- 
berry and his ancient friend Verges. But the 
chief interest of the play circles round Benedick 
and Beatrice ; it originally bore their names instead 
of ' Much Ado,' etc. ; they have won for it its great 
popularity ; they love each other from the first, but 
they do not know it ; each of them has forsworn love 
because they conceive it to be a cause of melan- 
choly ; the lady says she would ' rather hear a dog 
bark at a cow than a man swear he loves her,' while 
Benedick tells us : ' I will not be sworn but love may 
transform me to an oyster ; but I'll take my oath on 
it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never 
make me such a fool.' It was a wild jest, and 
worthy of the brain of Shakespeare, to bring two such 
avowed infidels to love together, and entangle them 
in the rose-linked meshes of Hymen ; but this is 
effected by the merry stratagem of making both believe 
that each is the object of the concealed passion of the 
other. So that after Benedick has declared of his 
cousin that : — ' She speaks poniards, and every word 
stabs : if her breath were as terrible as her termina- 
tions, there were no living near her, she would infect 
to the north star ; I would not marry her though she 
were endowed with all that Adam had left him 
before he transgressed ; ' he offers her his hand and 
heart, and loves her with as much warmth and sin- 
cerity, though certainly not with so much youthful 
heart and passion, as the young ill-starred Borneo did 
his mistress, Juliet. Their mutual declaration of 
affection is exquisite and in admirable keeping : — 



38 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Benedick — I protest I love thee. 
Beatrice — Why, then, God forgive me ! 
Benedick — What offence, sweet Beatrice ? 
Beatrice — You have staid me in a happy hour; 
I was about to protest I loved you. 

Many a lady might learn a winning lesson from this 
delightful frankness. 




- RC N AND TITAN I A 
.-2 . Vid Sitm*n,er-j\ 'iaJU&ltream . Met IV, Sc 



A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 39 

HISTOKICAL SUMMARY OF 'A MIDSUMMER- 
NIGHT'S DREAM.' 



The Knight's Tale, in Chaucer, is supposed by 
Steevens to have been the prototype whence Shake- 
speare derived the leading features of this play : the 
same writer conjectures that the doggerel verses of 
Bottom and his associates are nothing more than an 
extract from 'the boke of Perymus and Thesbye,' 
printed in 1562; while Mr. Capell thinks our author 
indebted to a fantastical poem of Drayton, called 
Nymphidia, or the Court of Fairy, for his notions 
of those aerial beings. 

The title of this drama was probably suggested (like 
'Twelfth Night' and 'The Winter's Tale') by the season 
of the year at which it was first represented : no other 
ground, indeed, can be assigned for the name which it 
has received, since the action is distinctly pointed out 
as occurring on the night preceding May-day. 

Of the 'Midsummer Night' s-Dream' there are two 
editions in quarto ; one printed for Thomas Fisher, 
the other for James Roberts, both in 1600. Neither 
of these editions deserves much praise for correctness. 
Fisher is sometimes preferable ; but Roberts was 
followed, though not without some variations, by 
Hemings and Condell, and they by all the folios that 
succeeded them. 

'Wild and fanciful as this play is,' says Dr. John- 
son, 'all the parts in their various modes are well 
written, and give the kind of pleasure which the au- 
thor designed. Fairies in his time were much in 
fashion : common tradition had made them familiar, 
and Spenser's poem had made them great. ' 



40 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



'SANDER, ] • 

' [ in love with Hermia. 

SMETRIUS, J 



Theseus, duke of Athens. 

Egeus, father to Hermia. 

Lysander, 

Demetrius 

Philostrate, master of the revels to Theseus. 

Quince, the carpenter. 

Snug, the joiner. 

Bottom, the weaver. 

Flute, the bellows-mender. 

Snout, the tinker. 

Starveling, the tailor. 

Hippolyt\ 1 ( l ueen °f tne Amazons, betrothed to 

J Theseus. 

Hermia, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. 
Helena, in love with Demetrius. 
Oberon, king of the fairies. 
Tetania, queen of the fairies. 
Puck, or Robin-goodfellow, a fairy. 
Peas-blossom, -i 
Cobweb, . . 

Moth, f fames - 

Mustard-seed, j 
Pyramus, 
Thisbe, 
Wall, 
Moonshine, 
Lion, 

Other fairies attending their king and queen. 
Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. 

Scene, Athens, and a wood not far from it. 



_ characters in the interlude performed 
by the clowns. 



A MIDSUMMEK-NIGHT'S DKEAM. 41 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Oberon, king of the fairies, requests his queen Titania 
to bestow on him a favorite page to execute the 
office of train-bearer; which she refusing, he, in 
revenge, moistens her eyes during sleep with a 
liquor, which possesses the singular property of 
enamoring her of the first person she sees : the 
object which her eyes first encounter is an ignorant 
Athenian weaver, named Bottom, who, together 
with his associates, are preparing to represent a 
play at the approaching nuptials of Theseus and 
Hippolyta ; when a waggish spirit of Oberon, 
named Puck, covers Bottom with the head of an 
ass; — a transformation which terrifies the rustic 
swains, and fulfils the intention of his master, in 
the dotage of his queen. During this period, a 
young couple, Lysander and Hermia, flying from a 
cruel father, and the rigor of the Athenian laws, 
which forbid their union, enter the enchanted wood, 
whither they are pursued by Demetrius, whose suit 
is favored by the father of the fugitive damsel, and 
who is himself beloved by another lady following 
him, named Helena, whom he treats with disdain. 
Oberon, in pity to Helena, commands Puck to 
anoint the eyes of the churlish Demetrius with the 
charmed liquor during sleep ; but he by mistake 
enchants Lysander. Demetrius soon after becomes 
the subject of the same operation, while Helena is 
presented to each of the awakened lover's : the 
object of their affections becomes now instantly 
changed, and the hitherto favored Hermia is re- 
jected by both ; till Oberon at length disenchants 
Lysander, restores the weaver to his pristine form, 



42 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

and becomes reconciled to his queen. The play 
concludes with the union of Hippolyta to Theseus, 
by whose mediation the father of Hermia consents 
to his daughter's marriage with Lysander, while 
Demetrius becomes the husband of Helena. Schle- 
gel says : ' The different parts of the plot ; the 
wedding of Theseus, the disagreement of Oberon and 
Titania, the flight of the two pair of lovers, and the 
theatrical operations of the mechanics, are so lightly 
and happily interwoven, that they seem neces- 
sary to each other for the formation of a whole. 
Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from their 
perplexities, and greatly adds to them through the 
misapprehension of his servant, till he at last comes 
to the aid of their fruitless amorous pain, their incon- 
stancy and jealousy, and restores fidelity to its old 
rights. The extremes of fanciful and vulgar are 
united when the enchanted Titania awakes and falls 
in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, 
who represents or rather disfigures the part of a 
tragical lover. The droll wonder of the transmutation 
of Bottom is merely the translation of a metaphor 
in its literal sense ; but, in his behavior during the 
tender homage of the Fairy Queen, we have a most 
amusing proof how much the consciousness of such a 
head-dress heightens the effect of his usual folly. 
Theseus and Hippolyta are, as it were, a splendid 
frame for the picture ; the}^ take no part in the 
action, but appear with stately pomp. The dis- 
course of the hero and his Amazon, as they course 
through the forest with their noisy hunting train, 
works upon the imagination like the fresh breath 
of morning, before which the shapes of night dis- 
appear. ' 




RMADO ANE JAQUENETTA. 
Lovets ZaJjou-r's Z,ost, ,-ici /., Soeti < //. 



LOVE'S LABOE'S LOST. 43 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'LOVE'S 
LABOR'S LOST.' 



No traces have yet been discovered of any novel or 
tale from which the incidents of this comedy have been 
borrowed. The fable, however, does not appear to be 
a work of pure invention, and most probably is in- 
debted for its origin to some romance, now no longer 
in existence. The character of Holofernes is supposed 
to be the portrait of an individual ; and some of his 
quotations have induced commentators to infer that 
John Florio, a pedantic teacher of Italian, was the 
object of the poet's satire. 

Malone conjectures that 'Love's Labor's Lost' was 
first written in 1594, of which no exact transcript is 
preserved ; for in the earliest edition which has hitherto 
been found of this play, namely that of 1598, it is said 
in the title page to be ' newly corrected and augmented,' 
with the farther information, that it had been ' pre- 
sented before her highness the last Christmas ; ' facts, 
which show, that we are in possession, not of the first 
draught or edition of this comedy, but only of that copy 
which represents it as it was revived and improved for 
the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth in 1597. That 
this was one of Shakespeare's earliest essays in dram- 
atic writing is clearly proved by the frequent rhymes, 
the imperfect versification, and the irregularity of the 
composition. 

'It must be confessed,' says Dr. Johnson, 'that 



44 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

there are many passages in this play, mean, childish, 
and vulgar ; and some which ought not to have heen 
exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. 
But there are scattered through the whole many sparks 
of genius ; nor is there any play that has more evident 
marks of the hand of Shakespeare. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Ferdinand, king of Navarre. 

Biron, ~) 

Longaville, >- lords attending on the king. 

Ditmain, j 

OYET, ! | or{ j g attending on the princess of France. 
Mercade, J 

Don Adriano de Armado, a fantastical Spaniard. 
Sir Nathaniel, a curate. 
Holofernes, a schoolmaster. 
Dull, a constable. 
Costard, a clown. 
Moth, page to Armado. 
A Forester. 

Princess of France. 

Rosaline, ") 

Maria, Y ladies attending on the princess. 

Katharine, ) 

Jaquenetta, a country wench. 

Officers and others, attendants on the king and princess. 
Scene, Navarre. 



LOVE'S LABOK'S LOST. 45 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Ferdinand, king of Navarre, having devoted himself 
to the study of philosophy, prevails on three of his 
courtiers, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, to renounce 
with him the pleasures of society ; exacting an oath 
from each, that for the space of three years they 
would sedulously attend to the culture of their 
minds, separate themselves entirely from the com- 
pany of females, and practise the utmost simplicity 
in their apparel and diet. At this critical juncture 
the princess of France arrives at the palace of 
Navarre on an embassy from the king, her father, 
attended by three ladies in her train : her personal 
charms and mental endowments soon make a power- 
ful impression on the heart of the secluded monarch ; 
and he has the satisfaction of perceiving that his 
fellow-students are not insensible to the attractions 
of the ladies of the French court ; but are equally 
anxious with himself to obtain a dispensation of 
their rash vow. An immediate prosecution of their 
suit is now resolved on, which exposes them to the 
raillery of their mistresses, who, after reproaching 
the repentant devotees with their perjury, insist on 
subjecting the permanence of their attachments to 
the trial of a whole year ; at the expiration of which 
period they consent to become their wives. Costard, 
a clown, and Moth, the page of Armado, are the 
broad humorists of the play, assisted therein by 
Jaquenetta, a country wench. 

Singer says, 'the scene in which the king and his 
companions detect each other's breach of their mu- 
tual vow is capitally contrived. The discovery of 



46 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Biron's love-letter while rallying his friends, and the 
manner in which he extricates himself, by ridiculing 
the folly of the vow, are admirable. ' 
The grotesque characters, Don Adriano de Armado, 
a braggadochio, such as we find frequently in Italian 
comedies, Nathaniel the curate, and Holofernes, 
that prince of pedants (whom Warburton thought 
was intended as a ridicule of the resolute John Flo- 
rio), with the humors of Costard the clown, are well 
contrasted with the sprightly wit of the principal 
characters in the play. It has been observed that 
' Biron and Bosaline suffer much in comparison 
with Benedick and Beatrice,' and it must be con- 
fessed that there is some justice in the observation. 
Yet Biron, 'that merry mad-cap lord,' is not over- 
rated in Bosaline' s admirable character of him — 

' A merrier man, 
Within the limit of becoming mirth, 
I never spent an hour's talk withal ; 
His eye begets occasion for his wit; 
For every object that the one doth catch 
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ; — 
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.' 

There are other immortal characters in the play — 
Dull, the obtuse constable, on whom Shakespeare 
improved in Dogberry, and Moth, the page, that 
' most acute juvenal, ' are, both, original creations 
and thoroughly Shakespearian. 




MA PHOTOGRAPH BYN.SARONY. 



'HOMAS KEENE AS SHYLOCK. 

. '/,.■;/..,, ,/ of r,.;,,; .,-'.'/ / Scene ///. 



MERCHANT OF VENICE. 47 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE 'MER- 
CHANT OF VENICE.' 



It is generally believed that Shakespeare was in- 
debted to several sources for the materials of this 
admirable play. The story of the bond is taken from 
a tale in the Pecorone of Sir Giovanni, a Florentine 
novelist, who wrote in 1378, three years after the death 
of Boccace. This book was probably known to our 
author through the medium of some translation no 
longer extant. The coincidences between these pro- 
ductions are too striking to be overlooked. Thus, the 
scene being laid at Venice ; the residence of the lady 
at Belmont ; the introduction of a person bound for 
the principal ; the taking more or less than a pound of 
flesh, and the shedding of blood ; together with the 
incident of the ring, are common to the novel and the 
play. 

The choice of the caskets, in this comedy, is borrowed 
from chapter 49 of the English Gesta Romanorum, 
where three vessels are placed before the daughter of 
the king of Apulia for her choice, to prove whether she 
is worthy to receive the hand of the son of Anselmus, 
emperor of Rome. The princess, after praying to Grod 
for assistance, rejects the gold and silver caskets, and 
chooses the leaden, which being opened, and found to 
be full of gold and precious stones, the emperor in- 
forms her that she has chosen as he wished, and 

immediately unites her to his son. 
18 



43 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

The love and elopement of Jessica and Lorenzo have 
been noticed by Mr. Dunlop as bearing a similitude to 
the fourteenth tale of Massuccio di Salerno, who 
nourished about 1470. In that tale we meet with an 
avaricious father, a daughter carefully shut up, her 
elopement with her lover by the intervention of a ser- 
vant, her robbing her father of his money, together 
with his grief on the discovery ; — a grief, divided 
equally between the loss of his daughter and the loss 
of his ducats. 

Malone places the date of the composition of this 
play in 1593. It is mentioned by Meres in his list 
published in 1598 to be printed by James Roberts, if 
license were first had from the Lord Chamberlain. It 
was not printed by Roberts until 1600. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Duke of Venice. 

Prince of Morocco, ) guitors t0 Portia 

Prince of Arbagon, ) 

Antonio, the merchant of Venice. 

Bassanio, his friend. 

Salanio, ") 

Salarino, [• friends to Antonio and Bassanio. 

Gratiano, ) 

Lorenzo, in love with Jessica. 

Shylock, a Jew. 

Tubal, a Jew, his friend. 

Launcelot Gobbo, a clown, servant to Shylock. 

Old Gobbo. father to Launcelot. 



MERCHANT OF VENICE. 49 



Salerio, a messenger from Venice. 

Leonardo, servant to Bassanio. 

Balthazar, ) , , ^ A . 

c ' Y servants to Portia. 

STEPHANO, J 

Portia, a rich heiress. 
Nerissa, her waiting-maid. 
Jessica, daughter to Shylock. 

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the court of justice, 
Jailer, Servants, and other Attendants. 

Scene, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the 
country-seat of Portia. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A rich and beautiful heiress residing at Belmont, 
named Portia, is compelled by the will of her deceased 
father to subject every suitor to the choice, by random 
guess, of a golden, silver, or leaden casket : in the lat- 
ter is enclosed a portrait of the lady, who is to become 
the wife of its fortunate selector. Bassanio, a young 
Venetian gentleman, at length obtains the prize, and 
is scarcely united to his bride, when he receives intelli- 
gence from Venice that his dear friend Antonio, from 
whose liberality he has procured the means of prose- 
cuting his suit, is completely ruined ; and that a bond, 
which he has executed with a Jew for the payment 
of a sum of money within a certain period, on forfeit- 



50 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



ure of a pound of flesh nearest his heart, is now de- 
manded by his inexorable creditor. After receiving a 
ring from his bride with professions of constancy, Bas- 
sanio flies to the relief of his patron : the lady, in the 
meantime, procures letters of recommendation from an 
eminent jurist, and, in the disguise of a doctor of laws, 
is introduced to the duke, as a person well qualified to 
decide the cause pending between the merchant and 
the Jew ; and at length, by her ingenuity, the unfor- 
tunate debtor is delivered from his savage persecutor. 
The disguised lawyer persists in refusing all pecuniary 
recompense, but entreats from Bassanio the ring which 
she had presented to him at his departure, which he 
reluctantly yields : the same expedient is successfully 
tried by the waiting-maid, who is the wife of G ratiano, 
disguised as a lawyer's clerk. The lady and her at- 
tendant now hasten home ; and, on the arrival of their 
husbands, amuse themselves with witnessing their con- 
fusion at the loss of their love tokens, till the strata- 
gem is at length fully explained. The remainder of 
this play is occupied with the elopement of Jessica, 
the daughter of the Jew, with a young man named 
Lorenzo, who procures from his father-in-law the re- 
version of his whole property. Gratiano is the bright, 
light-hearted friend of Antonio and Bassanio, who 
weds Nerissa. Shylock is not more cruel than his age ; 
for Antonio, honest merchant as he is, would have con- 
verted the Jews to Christianity by means of the inqui- 
sition ; and when Shylock is every way defeated and 
humbled, insists on his apostatizing from his religious 
faith, or he will take from him the remaining moiety 
of his wealth. We do not participate largely in the 
general sympathy for Antonio ; he is full of the pre- 
judices of conventionality, rather dogmatic, aielan- 



MERCHANT OF VENICE. 51 



choly without a cause, and of an unsocial nature. The 
■ rattling Gratiano gives him wholesome advice, and al- 
though Antonio pretends to despise it, the lively jester 
is the wiser of the two. Antonio is a bad political 
economist ; he lends money without interest, because he 
•does not understand its value as a commodity in mer- 
chandise, as well as its use as a medium of exchange ; 
but he has no right to rail on Shylock, because he de- 
clines to follow a profitless and erroneous example. 
He had gratified his hate to the Jew by many mean 
and insolent provocations, altogether unworthy of the 
conduct of a Venetian gentleman ; and the act of 
spitting upon the bread of the Israelite was little short 
of absolute ruffianism. Still the amiable Antonio jus- 
tifies this conduct, and says he is likely to repeat it. 
' After this,' as Mr. Hazlitt well remarks, ' the appeal 
to the Jew's mercy, as if there were any common 
principle of right and wrong between them, is the 
rankest hypocrisy, or the blindest prejudice.' Mrs. 
Jamieson (a delightful and very acute writer) is angry 
with Hazlitt because he thinks Portia a clever woman, 
.and because he says she has a degree of affectation 
about her which is not usual in Shakespeare's repre- 
sentation of women. She exclaims — ' Portia clever ! 
why the word clever implies something common-place, 
inasmuch as it speaks the presence of the active and 
perceptive, with a deficiency of the feeling and reflect- 
ive powers.' 'Portia,' she eloquently continues, 
.' hangs beside the terrible inexorable Jew, the brilliant 
lights of her character set off by the shadowy power 
of his, like a magnificent beauty-breathing Titian by 
the side of a gorgeous Rembrandt. ' Notwithstanding 
Mrs. Jamieson's appeal in behalf of Portia, we are 
somewhat inclined to side with Hazlitt in his estimate 



52 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

of the character ; she is too quick and sarcastic, and a 
little too forward. Many of her speeches are very 
beautiful, and all of them are evidence that she is a 
woman of great intellect. Nerissa is a pert imitator of 
her mistress — a copy in water-colors of a fine oil paint- 
ing. Jessica is not an amiable creation ; she runs away 
from her father to marry one of a race he detests ; 
this is an offence, but still, under the peculiar circum- 
stances, not an unforgivable one : but she robs her 
father, and wantonly wastes the proceeds of her dis- 
honesty. She has no compunction in leaving her home 
thus stealthily ; on the contrary, her last tbought be- 
fore quitting it is, that she has not helped herself suf- 
ficiently to her father's stores. There is a selfishness 
about this that is disgusting, but the usurer's love of 
money descended to his offspring, and that which is 
greedily accumulated by the" father is idly dissipated 
by the daughter. The trial scene is a masterpiece of 
dramatic construction, a play in itself; with every char- 
acter perfectly developed. Shylock defends his own 
cause, and urges his claim with consummate skill ; he 
stands like a rock, unshaken by the waves of argument 
which repeatedly dash against him. His answers are 
admirable ; elated by a feeling of assured success — tri- 
umphing in the anticipated death of his enemy whom 
he contemplates offering as a sacrifice to the insulted 
genius of his people, he at first replies in a bantering 
vein — he'll not answer — it is his humor : but when the 
duke appeals to his religious feelings, he enters freely 
into argument — denies that he falls within the censure 
of the sacred law — he has as much right to a pound 
of the body of Antonio, which is his by purchase, as 
they have to the bodies of their domestic slaves. Shy- 
lock has the best of the argument ; and he feels that 



MEKCHANT OF VENICE. 53 

he has. The duke cannot answer him, but talks about 
dismissing the court ; when Portia opportunely arrives. 
At her appearance — taking her for a youth, and, there- 
fore, an inexperienced lawyer — he regards her with a 
smile of triumph — he is the more certain of his re- 
venge. Already, in imagination, does he see the once 
haughty, scoffing merchant quivering and fainting be- 
neath his weapon. Gratiano utters a violent invective 
against him : he answers, with derisive scorn and a 
bitter wit — 

'Till thou can'st rail the seal from off my bond, 
Thou but offend'st thy lungs to sneak so loud.' 

Portia then appeals to his sense of humanity, but his 
heart is closed ; he is offered thrice his money, but 
avarice is overpowered and swallowed up by a gigan- 
tic desire of revenge. Portia makes one final attempt 
to arouse his feelings; — he will at least have at hand a 
surgeon, lest Antonio should bleed to death ; but he 
cannot find it so nominated in the bond, and he ad- 
heres to the strict letter of the law. It is now that 
our feelings turn against the Jew ; a revenge so im- 
placable seems fiendish, we forget his wrongs, and our 
sympathy is lost to him. He demands judgment, and 
flourishing his knife, exclaims to his intended victim, 
in a voice of vindictive malice, ' Come, prepare.' The 
scale is now turned ; he is told to cut off the pound of 
flesh, but, adds Portia — 

' This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood,' etc. 

Shylock at once perceives himself defeated, ruined, 
and triumphed over; his wealth is confiscated and his 
life is ostentatiously pardoned, but on such conditions, 



54 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

that in the agony of his soul, he solicits them to take 
that too ; and finally, with a bitter, heart-broken sigh, 
he totters from the court, to hide his sorrow in his 
lonely and deserted house, a childless, ruined man. 
We hear no more of Shylock, but the interest is well 
sustained during the remaining act, and as poetry, it 
is perhaps superior to the rest of the play ; it is like a 
strain of exquisite melody to soothe the ruffled spirit 
of the spectator after the excitement of the trial. The 
light buffoon of the play is Launcelot Gobbo. It is as 
impossible for Shakespeare to get along without a 
clown, as for a circus of the present day to omit that 
amusing feature of the performance. 




MARY ANDERSON AS ROSALIND. 
~4s Ybw L ike It, dot If.. Scene- IV 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 55 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'AS YOU 
LIKE IT.' 



The plot of this beautiful and romantic comedy has 
been attributed by Dr. Grey and Mr. Upton to the 
Coke's Tale of Gamelyn, erroneously called Chaucer's ; 
but no printed edition of that work made its appear- 
ance till near a century after the death of our author, 
who contented himself with borrowing his story from 
a novel, or rather pastoral romance, entitled ' Euphues' 
Golden Legacy,' written in a very fantastical style by 
Dr. Thomas Lodge, and by him first published in 1590. 
In addition to the fable, which is pretty exactly fol- 
lowed, the outlines of the principal characters may be 
traced in the novel, with the exception of Jaques, 
Touchstone, and Audrey, who are generally admitted 
to be the creation of the poet. 

The first publication of As You Like It ' appears to 
have been the folio of 1 623. It is supposed by Malone 
to have been written after 1 596, and before 1 600. We 
learn by tradition that Shakespeare himself performed 
the part of Adam. 

'Of this play,' writes Dr. Johnson, 'the fable is 
wild and pleasing. I know not how the ladies will ap- 
prove the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia 
give away their hearts. To Celia much may be for- 
given for the heroism of her friendship. The charac- 
ter of Jaques is one of force and originality. The 
comic dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of 



56 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

low buffoonery than in some other plays ; and the 
graver part is elegant and harmonious. By hastening 
to the end of his work, Shakespeare suppressed the 
dialogue between the usurper and the hermit, and lost 
an opportunity of exhibiting a moral lesson, in which 
he might have found matter worthy of his highest 
powers. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Duke, living in exile. 

Frederick, brother to the Duke, and usurper of his 
dominions. 

Amiens, ) 

Jaques I '°™ s attending upon the Duke in his ban- 
ishment. 

Le Beau, a courtier attending upon Frederick. 

Charles, his wrestler. 

O ANT ^ [ sons of Sir Rowland de Bois. 

Adam, ) „.. 

Dennis, } servants to Oliver. 

Touchstone, a clown. 

Sir Oliver Mar-text, a vicar. 

S?Lvms,} she P herds - 

William, a country fellow, in love with Audrey. 

A person representing Hymen. 

Rosalind, daughter to the banished Duke. 
Celia^ daughter to Frederick. 




GRAPH BY 



MAURICE BARRYMORE AS ORLANDO. 
. y.v ybu 7. ike It . . Set /// ■ V, -,ne II. 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 57 



Phebe, a shepherdess. 
Audrey, a country wench. 

Lords belonging to the two Dukes ; Pages, Foresters, 
and other Attendants. 

The Scene lies, first, near Oliver's house ; afterwards, 

partly in the usurper's court, and partly 

in the forest of Arden. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A Duke of France, being dispossessed of his domin- 
ions by Frederick, his younger brother, retires to the 
forest of Arden with a few faithful adherents, leaving 
behind him his daughter Kosalind, who is detained at 
the court ,of the usurper to be a companion to her 
cousin Celia. While here, Rosalind becomes enamored 
of young Orlando, son of Sir Roland de Bois, the old 
duke's friend, who signalizes himself in wrestling before 
the court. The accomplishments and popularity of 
Rosalind soon, however, excite the apprehensions of 
her uncle, who banishes her from his territories : the 
aiFection of Celia prompts her to accompany her kins- 
woman, and she makes her escape in the disguise of a 
shepherdess, while Rosalind assumes the habit of a 
man. Arrived at the forest of Arden, the two friends 
purchase a house and grounds, where they reside for 
some time as brother and sister : here they are agree- 
ably surprised at the presence of Orlando, who, in or- 
der to guard his life from the machinations of Oliver, 



58 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

his elder brother, is compelled to join the company of 
the banished Duke. Rosalind, after, by delightful 
Strategy, satisfying herself of the attachment of her 
lover, and the willingness of her father to consent to 
their union, resumes her female apparel, and bestows 
her hand on Orlando, while Celia becomes the wife of 
the repentant Oliver, whose life is preserved from the 
fury of a lion by the bravery of his injured brother. 
In the meantime Duke Frederick, jealous of the in- 
creasing number of his opponents, arrives with a large 
army for the purpose of exterminating them : on the 
skirts of the forest he is encountered by an old hermit, 
who dissuades him from the prosecution of his cruel 
enterprise. Struck with remorse, he voluntarily re- 
signs his dukedom, and retires from the world, 
while the exiles are reinstated in their former 
dignities. The character of Jaques is natural and 
well preserved — one of the most pleasant philoso- 
phers the world has ever seen. Touchstone is the 
most intellectual of the fools of Shakespeare ; he is a 
great lover of argument ; there is no broad farcical 
fun about him, but a grave humor which is admira- 
ble. He is a moral teacher, too, in his way, and regrets 
' that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do 
foolishly. ' Some of his sayings are aphorisms of con- 
siderable wisdom, as, ' Rich honesty dwells like a 
miser, sir, in a poor house ; as your pearl in your foul 
oyster ; ' and ' Your If is your only peacemaker ; 
much virtue in an If." 1 In the introduction of Sir 
Oliver Mar-text (a character seldom played), our poet 
indulges in a sly hit against the Puritan aud itinerant 
ministers, whom he appears to have regarded with 
aversion. The concluding observation of the curate 
stamps him as a man not properly qualified for the 



AS YOU LIKE IT. 59 

clerical profession. Audrey is a country lass, as igno- 
rant as might be supposed from a life of so isolated a 
nature, but there is something really winning in the 
poor girl's natural simplicity. Touchstone, regretting 
her want of an appreciative understanding of his hu- 
morous sallies, wishes that the gods had made her po- 
etical, to which she replies : ' I do not know what po- 
etical is ; is it honest in deed and word ? Is it a true 
thing?' This character is often misunderstood upon 
the stage, being represented as a coarse country gawky ; 
a little considei-ation of the poet will show that she is 
an artless, comely peasant-girl, ignorant enough, but 
attractive from her fresh rural simplicity and unre- 
served sincerity. 



60 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'ALL'S WELL 
THAT ENDS WELL.' 



The fable of this comedy is taken from a novel, of 
which Boccace is the original author; but which was 
immediately derived by Shakespeare from the tale of 
Giletta of Narbonne, in the first volume of William 
Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure,' printed at London in 
1566. To this novel, however, the poet was only in- 
debted for the leading features of the more serious 
parts of his drama : the comic characters, and espe- 
cially that of Parolles, appear to be entirely of his own 
formation. 

A supposed allusion to the fanaticism of the Puritans 
induced Malone to assign the date of 1G06 to the com- 
position of this play ; but the many passages of rhyme 
scattered throughout seem to mark it as an earlier 
production. In 1598 Meres refers to a play of Shake- 
speare, called ' Love's Labor Wonne,' which very accu- 
rately applies to this, but to no other of our author's 
productions : we have reason therefore to conclude 
that it was intended as a counter-title to ' Love's Labor's 
Lost ; ' and that the present proverbial appellation was 
suggested in consequence of the adage itself being 
found in the body of the play. 

' This play,' says Dr. Johnson, ' has many delightful 
and some happy characters, though not new, nor 
produced by any deep knowledge of human nature. 
Parolles is a boaster and a coward, such as has always 




BERTRAM a: t I THE COUNTESS [r^PZV/ELLl 
dlls Weil that £„./.y Well. JiotL.S'cene I- 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 61 

been the sport of the stage ; but perhaps never raised 
more laughter or contempt than in the hands of 
Shakespeare. I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram ; 
a man noble without generosity, and young without 
truth : who marries Helena as a coward, and leaves her 
as a profligate : when she is dead by his unkindness, 
sneaks home to a second marriage ; is accused by a 
woman whom he has wronged ; defends himself by 
falsehood ; and is dismissed to happiness. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King of France. 

Duke op Florence. 

Bertram, count of Rousillon. 

Lapeu, an old lord. 

Parolles, a follower of Bertram. 

Several young French Lords, that serve with Bertram 

in the Florentine war. 
Steward, ^ 

Clown, Y servants to the countess of Rousillon. 
A Page, J 

Countess op Rousillon, mother to Bertram. 

Helena, a gentlewoman protected by the countess. 

An old Widow of Florence. 

Diana, daughter to the widow. 

Violenta, ) . . . , „ . , , . , 

Ma a r neighbors and mends to the widow. 

Lords attending on the king ; Officers, Soldiers, etc., 
French and Florentine. 
Scene, partly in France and partly in Tuscany. 



62 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Helena, the daughter of a celebrated physician, 
conceives a violent attachment to Bertram, count of 
Rousillon, who on the death of his father repairs to 
Paris, as a ward of the king of France, at this time 
languishing under the influence of a distemper which 
has been pronounced incurable. Directed by the medi- 
cal knowledge she has received from her father, Helena 
procures an audience of the monarch, and undertakes 
to effect his cure, on condition of choosing for herself 
a husband, with reservation only of the royal family. 
The king is restored to health, and the lady fixes her 
choice on Bertram. Unable to resist, the young count 
reluctantly consents to the nuptials, which are no 
sooner performed, than he dismisses his bride to her 
home, and sets out for Florence, whence he sends her 
a letter intimating his determination of never cohabit- 
ing with her till (what he considers to be an impossi- 
bility) she obtains a ring which he wears on his finger, 
and is pregnant by him. The receipt of this epistle in- 
duces Helena to quit the castle of Rousillon, and pro- 
ceed to Italy, where she hears of her husband's un- 
successful attempts on the chastity of a widow's daugh- 
ter, on whom she prevails to pretend to accede to his 
solicitations, and Helena is afterwards introduced in her 
stead to the bed of Bertram, and there contrives to 
exchange rings with him. Soon after Bertram, hav- 
ing received intelligence of the death of Helena, re- 
turns to France, and is reconciled to the king, who is 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 63 

about to consent to his union with the daughter of a 
favorite courtier, when he detects a ring in his posses- 
sion, which he had formerly presented to Helena, who 
had contrived to place it on her husband's finger dur- 
ing his supposed assignation with his Italian mistress. 
Failing to give any satisfactory account of the means 
by which he obtained it, he is suspected of having 
murdered his wife, when Helena appears, satisfies her 
husband of the fulfilment of his requisitions, and is pub- 
licly acknowledged by the repentant Bertram. We 
could have wished that the long discussion between 
Parolles and Helena in the first act had been given to 
some other character ; it profanes the otherwise delicate 
modesty of her nature, which is on no other occasion 
overstepped or laid aside ; even in her strange plan to 
obtain the affections of her husband. This coarse dia- 
logue, witty and ingenious as it is, would have been 
better omitted ; it was one of Shakespeare's numerous 
concessions to the sensuality of his audiences. The 
Countess, mother of Bertram, is a highly interesting 
character ; Shakespeare invests all his matrons with 
dignity ; he is no ungallant poet who represents the 
young only as attractive. The amiability and wisdom 
of the Countess win our admiration, and her directions 
to her son on his leaving her for the court, though 
brief, may be justly placed in comparison with Polo- 
nius's sage and excellent advice to Laertes on a similar 
occasion. The king is a philosophical invalid, who ut- 
ters many valuable moral truths ; his expostulation 
with Bertram on his pride of birth is a piece of pow- 
erful reasoning. It is equally true as strange that, de- 
spite our lofty pretensions and cherished ancestral dig- 
nities, our blood poured altogether ' would quite con- 
found distinction.' Parolles is the great comic crea- 
19 



64 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

tion of the piece, a fop, a fool, a liar, a braggart, and 
every way a knave ; and yet, with all these vices, amus- 
ing enough. He is too contemptible for anger; we 
almost pity him when he is discovered and disgraced, 
and even when he is exposed to the unmerciful raillery 
of the jovial old Lord Lafeu, who says ' there can be 
no kernel in this light nut ; the soul of this man is his 
clothes. ' His adventure in search of the lost drum, 
which he swears he will recover or perish in attempting 
to do so, and then goes out for a walk at night to de- 
vise some account of his expedition, is a piece of ad- 
mirable comedy. But his being taken prisoner by his 
own companions (who suspect his cowardice), blind- 
folded, and made to confess to them the secrets of their 
own camp, is irresistibly amusing ; equal in broad fun 
to Falstaff's midnight adventure at Gadshill. But Pa- 
rolles cannot extricate himself from a difficulty with 
the same dexterity that is evinced by the jovial fat 
knight ; once discovered he is disgraced forever, and 
he resolves to give up military pretensions and live 
'safest in shame.' He turns parasite and gets his 
bread by flattery. In this new capacity he shows great 
dexterity, and when he enters in soiled and ragged at- 
tire, he propitiates the old Lord Lafeu in his favor by 
a delicate compliment, '0 my good Lord, you were 
the first that found me;' that is, your strong sense 
and discernment first discovered me to be a braggart 
and no soldier. The shrewd old noble is flattered into 
compassion, and exclaims: 'Though you are a fool 
and a knave, you shall eat : go to, follow.' 

Monsieur Lavatch, the clown, with his answer that 
suits all questions, adds to the comic interest of the 
play, and may fairly take rank with Touchstone and 
Feste for humor and equivocating wit. 



ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 65 

In noticing the beauties of this comedy, the scene 
where the young Count Bertram woos Diana to yield 
to his impetuous and unlawful love should not be for- 
gotten ; a finer lesson on maiden purity was never 
preached ; a holier caution to young and susceptible 
beauty never fell from the lips of moralist or sage. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE ' TAMING 
OF THE SHREW.' 



Nothing appears to invalidate the conclusion of 
Malone that this was one of Shakespeare's earlier 
plays, although Warburton and Farmer have disputed 
its authenticity. It abounds with the doggerel measure 
and tedious play on words, so observable in 'The 
Comedy of Errors,' and ''Love's Labor's Lost,' which 
Shakespeare took occasion to condemn in one of his 
subsequent comedies. The year 1 596 is the probable 
date of its production, since in 1594, an old play, on 
which the present drama is supposed to be founded, 
was entered at Stationers' Hall, entitled ' Taming of a 
Shrew,' which is attributed to the pen of George Peele 
or Robert Greene. The plots of these two pieces are 
found to be essentially the same. 

The story of Lucentio, and his artifice to obtain the 
hand of Bianca, is formed on a comedy of George 
Gascoigne, from the Italian of Ariosto, called ' Sup- 
poses,' which was performed by the gentlemen of 
Gray's Inn in 1566; and the Induction is borrowed 
from Goulart's Histoires Admiralties de notre Temps. 
translated from the Latin of Heuterus, who relates a 
similar delusion, which was practised on the credulity 
of a poor artisan at Brussels by Philip the Good, duke 
of Burgundy. 
(66) 




KATHARINA AND PETRUGHIO. 

T/i.Ta,,,),,^ ofihe S/'rr,,- .S.V /!',. \Wnc /. 



TAMING OF THE SHREW. 67 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



A Lord. 

Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker. 
Hostess, Page, Players, Huntsmen, 

and other servants attending on the 

lord. 



Persons in the 
Induction. 



Baptista, a rich gentleman of Padua. 
Vincentio, an old gentleman of Pisa. 
Lucentio, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca. 
Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to 

Katharina. 
Gremio, I suitors to Bianca. 

HORTENSIO, i 

Tranio, ) servants to Lucentio. 

BlONDELLO, J 

Grumio, ) S8rvants to Petruchio. 

Curtis, ) 

Pedant, an old fellow set up to personate Vincentio. 

Katharina, the shrew, | daugllters t0 Baptista. 

Bianca, her sister, J 

Widow. 

Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Bap- 
tista and Petruchio. 

Scene, sometimes in Padua ; and sometimes in Petru- 
chio' s house in the country. 



68 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A nobleman, returning from the chase, finds an ig- 
norant tinker, named Sly, lying on the bench of an ale- 
house, dead-drunk, and causes him to be conveyed 
home, laid on one of his richest beds, and arrayed in 
the most costly apparel. When the drunkard awakes, 
he is surrounded by attendants, who succeed in per- 
suading him that he is a nobleman, who for many 
years has been laboring under mental delusion. The 
conviction of Sly that he is ' a lord indeed ' is succeeded 
by the introduction of a company of players, who en- 
tertain him with the representation of a comedy, of 
which the following is a brief outline : A citizen of 
Padua, named Baptista, the father of Katharina and 
Bianca, refuses to listen to the numerous admirers of 
the latter till after the marriage of her elder sister, 
whose violence of temper effectually deters all suitors ; 
and the lovers of Bianca are compelled to resort to the 
expedient of procuring a husband for Katharina, which 
they accomplish, in the person of Petruchio. By a 
rough and singular method of courtship the shrew is 
won, and at length tamed by a perseverance in the 
same course of treatment. In the meantime, Lucen- 
tio, a young gentleman of Pisa, introduces himself to 
Bianca in the disguise of a classical tutor, and suc- 
ceeds in obtaining her hand by the intervention of his 
servant Tranio, who assumes the name and apparel 
of his master in order to forward his designs. The 
presence of Lucentio's father becomes necessary, and 
Tranio devises the scheme of engaging a schoolmaster 
to represent him. At this critical juncture the real 



TAMING OF THE SHREW. 69 

father unexpectedly arrives, and encounters his son's 
servant in his master's clothes. Tranio impudently 
disclaims all knowledge of his master's father, who is 
about to be committed to jail as an impostor, when 
his son enters with his bride, and a reconciliation is 
speedily effected. Schlegel thinks that the latter part 
of Shakespeare's play of 'Taming of a Shrew' has 
been lost, or that the remarks of the tinker during the 
progress of the play were left to the judgment of the 
actor, though he also admits that it is unlikely that the 
poet should have left to chance the conclusion of that 
which he had so carefully commenced. The character 
of Sly in the introduction is drawn with a broad pen- 
cil, and in a style of the richest humor ; he is very 
sceptical of the truth and reality of his newly acquired 
rank, and asks incredulously — 'am I not Christopher 
Sly, old Sly's son of Burton-heath ; by birth, a ped- 
lar ; by education, a card-maker ; by transmutation, a 
bear-herd ; and now, by present profession, a tinker ! ' 
I'o dissipate his doubts, his deceivers call in the aid 
of music, and description in language exquisitely glow- 
ing, of the pleasures which await him. They describe 
his horses, hawks, and hounds, his pictures : 

' Adonis, painted by a running brook ; 

And Cytherea all in sedges hid; 

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, 

Even as the waving sedges play with wind.' 

And lastly his wife, whom they describe as — 

' A lady far more beautiful 
Than any woman in this waning age.' 

The poor tinker is bewildered and convinced, and de- 
termines to celebrate, what he supposes to be his re- 



70 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

turn to reason, with 'a pot o' the smallest ale.' In 
the play itself, Petruchio and Katharina are emi- 
nently Shakespearian creations. Petruchio, Benedick, 
and Mercutio, etc., are a class of characters peculiar 
to our poet, and which could only have been written 
by a man with a natural cheerfulness and love of hu- 
manity. In drawing the character of Katharina, 
Shakespeare has pictured a woman naturally of a 
kind though irritable disposition, made a complete 
scold by early indulgence and a bad education. Petru- 
chio undertakes to re-educate her, and he does so with 
a happy effect : the virago becomes a gentle and obe- 
dient wife. Her lecture, after she has been tamed, 
in the banquet scene, to her sister and the widow, 
on the duty Avhich a woman owes her husband, is 
a fine moral sermon, dressed in language of the lofti- 
est poetry. Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of ' The 
Woman's Prize ; or, the Tamer Tam'd,' is a continua- 
tion of the 'Taming of the Shrew,' and in it Petru- 
chio is in his turn subdued by a second wife. 




FL0R1ZEL AND PERDITA. 
V/,. Hi,,/, /-.v /.',/,, ./,-/ fir Scene ///. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'THE WINTER'S 
TALE.' 



The story of this play is taken from Robert Greene's 
' Pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia,' which was 
published in ] 588. Shakespeare has, however, changed 
the names of the characters, and added the parts of 
Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus from his own in- 
vention. 

'The Winter's Tale' was not entered on the Sta- 
tioners' hooks, or printed till 1623, while we learn from 
Vertue's manuscripts that it was acted at court in 1613. 
Malone attributes the composition to the year 1611; 
but Lord Orford assigns to it a much earlier date, and 
conjectures that it was written during the lifetime of 
Elizabeth, and that it was intended as an indirect apol- 
ogy for Anne Boleyn ; in which light it might he con- 
sidered as a sequel to ' King Henry VIII.' 

Much censure has been cast on our author by Dry- 
den and Pope for his disregard of the classical unities, 
which are nowhere so daringly violated as in this pro- 
duction, where we meet with a young woman becoming 
a bride, who, but a few minutes before, had been de- 
posited on the sea-shore, a new-born infant. 

Schlegel has observed of this drama that its title is 
happily adapted to its subject, being ' one of those tales 
which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary 
leisure of a long winter evening, which is even at- 
tractive and intelligible to childhood, and which, ani- 
mated by fervent truth in the delineation of character 
and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry 

(71) 



72 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the sub- 
ject, transport even manhood back to the golden age 
of imagination.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Leontes, king of Sicilia. 

Mamillius, his son. 

Camillo, -i 

Antigonus, I 

Cleomenes, I Sicilian lords - 

Dion, j 

Another Sicilian Lord. 

Rogero, a Sicilian gentleman. 

An Attendant on the young prince Mamillius. 

Officers of a court of judicature. 

Polixenes, king of Bohemia. 

Florizel, his son. 

Archidamtts, a Bohemian lord. 

A Mariner. 

Jailer. 

An old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita. 

Clown, his son. 

Servant to the old Shepherd. 

Autolycus, a rogue. 

Time, as chorus. 

Hermione, queen to Leontes. 

Perdita, daughter to Leontes and Hermione. 

Paulina, wife to Antigonus. 

Emilia, a lady, | 

Two other Ladies, j attendin S the W*™- 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 73 



Mopsa, 
Dorcas 



[• shepherdesses. 



Lords, Ladies and Attendants ; Satyrs for a dance ; 
Shepherds, Shepherdesses, Guards, etc. 

Scene, sometimes in Sicilia ; sometimes in Bohemia. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Polixenes, king of Bohemia, during a visit to his 
friend Leontes, king of Sicily, awakens the jealousy of 
his host, who unjustly suspects him of an intrigue 
with his wife Hermione, and endeavors to prevail on a 
courtier, named Camillo, to poison his guest : instead, 
however, of complying with his request, Camillo in- 
forms the unsuspecting monarch of his danger, and 
accompanies him in his flight to Bohemia. Leontes 
now vents his rage on the innocent Hermione, who is 
debarred from the society of her son, and confined in 
prison, where she is delivered of a daughter named 
Perdita, who is considered by Leontes as spurious, 
and ordered to be exposed for death. Antigonus, to 
whose custody the infant is committed, reaches the 
Bohemian territories, and during his progress is stran- 
gled by a bear, while the child is found by a poor 
shepherd, who rears it as his own. In the meantime, 
the character of Hermione is completely vindicated by 
the answer of the oracle of Delphi, which informs Le- 
ontes that he shall want an heir to his kingdom till 
the lost infant is found ; and in confirmation of its 



74 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

truth, his son suddenly expires immediately after the 
arrival of the commissioners. The spirits of the queen 
are unable to sustain this last shock ; she nearly dies, and 
the intelligence of her death is soon after conveyed to 
her repentant husband. At the age of sixteen, Per- 
dita captivates the aifections of Florizel, the son of 
Polixenes, who contrives to escape from- Bohemia with 
his affianced bride, and reaches the coast of Sicily, 
whither he is pursued by his enraged father : the ap- 
parel and jewels, which were found with the infant at 
the time of its exposure, are now produced by the 
shepherd, and Perdita is recognized as the daughter 
of Leontes, and bestowed in marriage on her lover. 
Paulina, the widow of Antigonus, invites her master 
and his guests to inspect a statue of Hermione, which 
excites unbounded admiration as a triumph of art, 
when the supposed marble becomes animated, and 
Leontes recovers his amiable wife, who had in retire- 
ment awaited the fulfilment of the oracle. Antolycus, 
the rogue, and the young shepherd and his two sweet- 
hearts, Mopsa and Dorcas, are a source of pleasant 
relief and merriment. 

Henry Tyrrell says : Shakespeare has been much 
censured on account of his utter disregard of the uni- 
ties of time and place in this play, and for his anach- 
ronisms and geographical errors. Sixteen years elapse 
between the third and fourth acts ; which circumstance 
so shocked Dryden that, speaking of this and some 
other productions of Shakespeare, he said they ' were 
either grounded on impossibilities, or so nieanly writ- 
ten, that the comedy neither caused your mirth nor the 
serious part your concernment.' 

The master-spirit of the drama is not to be meas- 
ured with a foot-rule and bound down by frigid regu- 



THE WINTEK'S TALE. 75 



lations, which every powerful imagination makes use 
of only so far as they are consistent with and favorable 
to his own design. Mr. Steevens has justly remarked 
that Shakespeare ' was not ignorant of these rules, but 
disregarded them.' 

With respect to the geographical error of making 
Bohemia a sea-bounded country, and opening a water 
communication between it and Sicilia, the poet doubt- 
less erred from ignorance. Greene, from whose story 
of ' Pandosta ' he had borrowed the subject, had pre- 
viously fallen into the same error, and Shakespeare 
has copied it without examination. We are willing to 
grant this freely, but it takes nothing from the exquis- 
ite beauty of the play ; it is none the less one of the 
finest comedies in existence although it contains a ge- 
ographical error. It is the critic's duty to point out 
such literal imperfections, that they might not mislead 
the uninformed ; but it betrays a pert and hasty judg- 
ment, when, presuming on the existence of such errors, 
he proceeds to condemn the work. It is as if a man 
finding among many precious pearls a few worthless 
pebbles should condemn them all as valueless. 

Leontes is justly punished for his suspicion ; his in- 
fant and dearly loved son pines and dies in consequence 
of his mother's disgrace ; his daughter is bred up by 
rude shepherds at a distance from her stricken father, 
and his aueen lost to him for a period of sixteen years, 
during which he bitterly reproaches himself as the 
cause of her supposed death. His remorse is not di- 
minished by time ; when the long separation is about 
to cease, and Paulina reminds him of the perfections 
of the woman he had killed, he answers mournfully : 

' She I kill'd ? I did so ; but thou strik'st me 
Sorely, to say I did.' 



76 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Shakespeare had the materials of a tragedy in his 
hand, had he been so disposed to treat the subject, 
but he chose to make it, like life, a mingled yarn of 
good and evil, smiles and tears ; and the sense of 
gloom produced by the sad effects of Leontes' jeal- 
ousy is dissipated by the charm of rustic, yet still ma- 
jestic, beauty, which surrounds Perdita, as the queen 
of the rural feast, distributing flowers and discoursing 
sweetly on their names and nature ; by the quaint hu- 
mor of the rogue, Autolycus, who, like his namesake, 
the son of Mercury, is ' a snapper up of unconsidered 
trifles ; ' and by the hearty merriment of the young 
shepherd and his two sweethearts, Mopsa and Dorcas. 
The court and the cottage are brought closely together, 
and while suspicion and remorse abide with princes, 
cheerfulness and mirth dwell with peasants. 

All throughout this play the language is in the 
poet's most mature and perfect style ; it is profuse in 
beauty, wanton and luxuriant in exquisite imagina- 
tions and aphorisms of deep wisdom. How admira- 
ble is Paulina's taunt to the passionate monarch, 
when he threatens to condemn her to the stake : 
' I care not ; 

It is an heretic that makes the fire, 

Not she which burns in it.' 

And for beauty, the whole of the third scene of the 
fourth act may be quoted as being almost without a 
parallel. The concluding scene also, where the sup- 
posed statue of Hermione is exhibited, and where, at 
the word of Paulina, it assumes animation, and the 
still living queen is restored to the embraces of her 
repentant husband, and her daughter, who had been 
estranged from her from the first hour of her birth, is 
an admirable and touching invention of Shakespeare's 
own inspiration. 




ROB SON AND CRANE AS THE TWO PROMIOS. 
Con^edz/ of Errors, </lct V., Scen,e I. 



COMEDY OF ERRORS. 77 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE ' COMEDY 
OF ERRORS.' 



Shakespeare appears to have taken the general plan 
of this comedy from a translation of the ' Mensechmi 
of Plautus,' by W. W., i. e. (according to Wood), Wil- 
liam Warner, in 1595, whose version of the argument 
is as follows : — 

' Two twinne-borne sons a Sicill marchant had, 

Menechmus one, and Sosicles the other : 
The first his father lost, a little lad ; 

The grandsire namde the latter like his brother. 
This, growne a man, long travell tooke to seeke 

His brother, and to Epidamnum came, 
Where th' other dwelt inricht, and hioi so like, 

That citizens there take him for the same ; 
Father, wife, neighbours, each mistaking either, 

Much pleasant error, ere they meete togither.' 

Perhaps the last of these lines suggested to Shake- 
speare the title for his piece. 

'In this play,' says Mr. Steevens, 'we find more 
intricacy of plot than distinction of character ; and 
our attention is less forcibly engaged, because we can 
guess, in great measure, how the denouement will be 
brought about. Yet the subject appears to have been 
reluctantly dismissed, even in the last and unnecessary 
scene, where the same mistakes are continued, till 
they have lost the power of affording any entertain- 
ment at all.' 



78 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Dr. Drake, in defending our author from the indis- 
criminate censure of Steevens, observes, that 'if we 
consider the construction of the fable, the narrowness 
of its basis, and that its powers of entertainment are 
almost exclusively confined to a continued deception 
of the external senses, we must confess that Shake- 
speare has not only improved on the Plautian model, 
but, making allowance for a somewhat too coarse vein 
of humor, has given to his production all the interest 
and variety that the nature and the limits of his subject 
would permit.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Solinus, duke of Ephesus. 
jEgeon, a merchant of Syracuse. 

Twin brothers, and sons 



Antipholus of Ephesus, 
Antipholus of Syracuse, 



toiEgeon and JEmilia, 
but unknown to each 
other. 

Dromio of Ephesus, j Twin brothers, and attendants 

Dromio of Syracuse, J on the two Antipholuses. 

Balthazar, a merchant. 

Angelo, a goldsmith. 

A merchant, creditor to Angelo. 

Pinch, a schoolmaster and conjurer. 

^Emilia, wife to JEgeon, an abbess at Ephesus. 
Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus. 
Luciana, her sister. 



COMEDY OF ERRORS. 79 



Luce, her servant. 
A Courtezan. 



Jailer, Officers, and other Attendants. 
Scene, Ephesus. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A rich merchant of Syracuse, named iEgeon, and 
a poor man of the same city, became the fathers of 
twin sons, each pair exactly resembling each other in 
feature : the children of the latter are purchased by 
the citizen, who bestows them on his sons as attend- 
ants. iEgeon, with his wife and family, shortly after 
visits Epidamnum ; and on their return, the ship in 
which they sail is split asunder by a violent storm, 
which separates the husband from the wife, and each 
of the twin brothers from their respective counterparts. 
iEgeon, with his younger son and attendant, is rescued 
from his perilous condition, and conveyed to Syracuse. 
Arrived at years of maturity, the young man is anxious 
to procure some intelligence of his mother and brother, 
and, with the consent of his father, quits his home, 
and at length, in company with his servant, arrives 
at Ephesus, where the elder Antipholus, who sepa- 
rated from his mother, has long resided, in high favor 
with the duke, at whose desire he has united himself 
to a lady of fortune, who now mistakes the stranger 
for her husband, insisting that he shall accompany her 
home to dinner : the real husband arrives during the 
20 



80 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

repast, and finds his own doors barred against his en- 
trance. The perplexities, arising from the confusion 
of the masters and their servants, induce the Syra- 
cusan youth to suppose himself under the influence 
of witchcraft, and he takes refuge in a religious 
house, whither his mother had retired, and had long 
presided as abbess. The Ephesian dame, supposing 
the refugee to be her husband, complains to the duke 
of the conduct of the abbess, who refuses to deliver 
him up to the custody of his wife. The simultaneous 
appearance of the young men and their servants now 
unravels the mystery. In the mean time, .iEgeon 
lands at Ephesus, and is about to lose his head for a 
violation of the law in entering a hostile city, when he 
is ransomed by his son, from whom he had parted at 
Syracuse ; and recognizes, in the person of the abbess, 
his long-lost wife, JEmilia, 

J. 0. Halliwell says : The matei'ials of which the 
'Comedy of Errors' is constructed chiefly belong to 
the cycle of farce, but they have been worked into a 
comedy by a wonderful effort of dramatic power ; the 
lighter character, however, remaining prominent in 
particular scenes. Comedy would allow the two An- 
tipholuses with a license similar to that which sanc- 
tions the resemblance between Sebastian and Viola 
in ' Twelfth Night ; ' but the two Dromios, in conjunc- 
tion with the former, certainly belong to farce. The 
admirable manner in which the mistakes arising from 
these identities are conducted, and the dignity given to 
the whole by the introduction of fine poetry most artis- 
tically interwoven, are indicative of that high dramatic 
genius which belongs almost exclusively to Shakespeare. 
The poetical conversation between Luciana and An- 
tipholus of Syracuse reminds us forcibly of the ' Son- 



COMEDY OF EKRORS. 81; 

nets,' and the similar ideas in the former are strength- 
ened in power by being associated with a dramatic 
narrative ; for had Shakespeare not been a dramatist, 
he would scarcely have ranked as so great a poet. No 
play of Shakespeare's, whether either effectively read 
or acted, affords as many subjects for broad merriment 
as this. 



82 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'MACBETH.' 



Malone has assigned to the year 1606 the composi- 
tion of this great effort of our author's genius, which 
has been regarded as the medium of dexterous and 
graceful flattery to James I. , a lineal descendant of 
Banquo, who is charged by the old historians with a 
participation in the murder of Duncan, although for 
very obvious reasons Shakespeare has here represented 
him as innocent of that cruel deed. 

The original narrative of these events is contained 
in the Scotorum Historice of Hector Boethius, whence 
it was translated into the Scottish dialect by John 
Bellenden, and afterwards into English by Holinshed, 
from whose Chronicles Shakespeare closely followed it. 
The awful incantations and mysterious agency of the 
witches in this tragedy could not fail to be highly 
gratifying to the pedantic vanity of a monarch, whose 
prejudices in favor of the reality of witchcraft or 
enchantment are well known. 

'This play,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is deservedly cele- 
brated fur the propriety of its fictions, and solemnity, 
grandeur, and variety of its action ; but it has no nice 
discriminations of character : the events are too great 
to admit the influence of particular dispositions ; and 
the course of the action necessarily determines the 
conduct of the agents. The danger of ambition is well 
described ; and I know not whether it may not be said, 
in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, 



iLEEP- WALKING SCENE. 

Afoucbeths. -Jet V, Scene. Z. 



MACBETH. 83 



that in Shakespeare's time it was necessary to warn 
credulity against vain and illusive predictions. The 
passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth 
is merely detested ; and though the courage of Mac- 
beth preserves some esteem, yet every reader rejoices 
at his fall. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



noblemen of Scotland. 



Duncan, king of Scotland. 

Malcolm, ) ■, • -- 

_ ' > his sons. 

DONALBAIN, ) 

Macbeth, j gen erals of the king's army. 

Banquo, ) 

Macduff, 

Lenox, 

Rosse, 

Menteth, 

Angus, 

Cathness, 

Fleance, son to Banquo. 

Siward, earl of Northumberland, general of the 

English forces. 
Young Siward, his son. 
Seyton, an officer attending on Macbeth. 
Son to Macduff. 

An English Doctor. A Scotch Doctor. 
A Soldier. A Porter. An old Man. 

Lady Macbeth. 
Lady Macduff. 



84 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth. 
Hecate, and three Witches. 

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, At- 
tendants, and Messengers. 

The Ghost of Banquo, and several other Apparitions. 

Scene, in the end of the fourth act, lies in England ; 
through the rest of the play, in Scotland ; and, 
chiefly, at Macbeth's castle. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Duncan, king of Scotland, is rescued from the 
calamities of foreign invasion and domestic treason by 
the valor of his generals Macbeth and Banquo, who, 
after the defeat of the enemy, are returning in tri- 
umph, when they are arrested in their progress by three 
witches, who salute Macbeth by the titles of Cawdor 
and king ; at the same time foretelling that Banquo 
shall be the father of a race of kings, although he 
shall never be in possession of the crown. After 
the announcement of these prophecies, the witches 
vanish, and messengers arrive from Duncan with the 
intelligence that the rebellious thane of Cawdor is 
condemned to death, and that his title is conferred on 
Macbeth, whose ambition is now panting for the fulfil- 
ment of the remainder of the prediction : overcome by 
the suggestions of his wife, he murders his sovereign 
in his sleep, during a visit with which he honors him. 
By the artful contrivances of the guilty pair, the king's 
two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, are suspected of 



MACBETH. 85 



parricide, and compelled to purchase their safety by 
flight. The sovereignty now devolves on Macbeth, 
who, fearful of the prophecy which assigns the crown 
to the posterity of Banquo, resolves to free himself of 
his apprehensions by the assassination both of him 
and his only son : the father is slain, but his son 
Fleance escapes under favor of the night. In the 
meantime, Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, resides 
in the English court, under the protection of Edward 
the Confessor, who raises a large army in his behalf, 
under command of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, r 
which is strengthened by the arrival of Macduff, the 
thane of Fife, who, in consequence of Macbeth' s jeal- 
ousy, is compelled to quit his country : after his de- 
parture, the inhuman tyrant wreaks his vengeance on 
that nobleman's wife and children, all of whom he 
causes to be murdered. The two friends, with their 
English auxiliaries, now proceed towards Scotland, 
where they are joined by a number of discontented 
nobles. Macbeth is defeated and slain ; his wretched 
wife, tormented with remorse, puts a period to her 
existence ; and Malcolm is restored to the throne of 
his ancestors. 

Let us give a brief analysis of its principal char- 
acters; it may be called a sublime homily on the 
weakness of human nature — a startling warning, 
spoken as it were, in words of thunder, and written 
in characters of blood, against dallying with tempta- 
tion. Macbeth is gradually led to do that which he 
persuades himself he cannot avoid— he consents to 
become a murderer, because he believes that fate 
has willed it so ; he is not the first or the last great 
criminal wbo has cast his sins upon a supposed 
fatal and indisputable ordinance, and who believes, or 



86 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

professes to believe, that he was predestined to evil. 
He is brave and just before he is tempted, but when 
tempted strongly, he yields, and falls from the warrior 
to the tyrant — timorous, cunning and blood-thirsty. 
When he slays the unoffending Duncan he first reasons 
strongly against the act, tries to escape from its com- 
mission — his conscience wrestles with him, and repre- 
sents the virtues of the meek king pleading like angels 
' against the deep damnation ' of the deed ; and when 
the act is done, it is instantly repented, and the mur- 
derer stands aghast at his soul-destroying work. The 
poet has here presented us with an awful picture of 
the terrors of conscience — the shuddering murderer 
trembling at every sound, and peopling the air with 
avenging voices uttering strange and fearful threaten- 
ings ; but after Macbeth becomes deeply steeped in 
blood and familiar with crime, we may observe the 
savage premeditation of his murders. When giving 
directions for the death of Banquo, he addresses the 
assassins thus : ' Was it not yesterday we spoke to- 
gether?' evincing a perfect indifference to the in- 
tended destruction of his old associate and fellow- 
soldier ; he has altogether got rid of the ' compunctious 
visitings' which shook him when engaged in the murder 
of Duncan. It has been said that a man who commits 
one murder, and escapes detection or punishment, 
seldom remains single in his crime — he is hounded 
on by his impetuous and savage desires again to 
imbrue his hands in blood ; thus is it with Macbeth : 
he feels that for him there is no retreat, and he adds 
crime to crime, until he becomes a mere vulgar tyrant, 
surrounding his nobility with spies, and, in his fear, 
devoting to death even the innocent, whom he merely 
suspected to be dangerous. 



MACBETH. 



Lady Macbeth is such a character as Shakespeare 
alone, of all dramatists, could have painted — terrible 
even to sublimity in her determinate -wickedness — 
fiend-like in the savage obduracy of her nature ; the 
bitter scoffer of the irresolute pleadings of departing 
virtue, and the expiring throes of conscience in her 
guilty partner ; still she is never utterly beyond our 
sympathy. Sbe urges her husband to the murder of 
Duncan, but she bears no hatred to the mild old king : 
he is an obstacle in her path to greatness, and must be 
removed. When bending over his couch, on the 
fearful night of his murder, when, amidst the howlings 
of the storm and the rack of the elements, there were 

' Lamentings heard i' the air ; strange screams of death 
And prophesying, with accents terrible' — 

even then, unmoved by all these horrors, she con- 
templates his destruction by her own hand ; but the 
resemblance between him and her aged father shoots 
athwart her mind, and she experiences a momentary 
tenderness for the unsuspecting and defenceless mon- 
arch. She is a woman still. But this softening of 
her stern nature is but transient ; it does not last long 
enough to interfere with her dread resolve ; she feels, 
but smothers human sympathies, and brings them into 
bondage to her adamantine will. This fearful woman 
is a faithful and affectionate wife : we view her with 
none of the abhorrence which is excited in us towards 
Regan and Goneril, the cruel and unnatural daughters 
of the aged Lear, whom, with an exquisite probability, 
Shakespeare also makes unchaste and treacherous 
wives. When, at the banquet, Macbeth raves about 
the ghost of Banquo, who glares horribly upon him 
and points to the 



8S COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

'Twenty trenched gashes on his head,' 
she dismisses the guests in confusion ; but when they 
are gone, she utters not one word of reproach, but 
gently tells him that he lacks rest. 

She has shown no sign of repentance — spoken no 
word of compunction ; yet we see her punishment is 
begun ; the torture of the mind tells on the fevered 
frame ; the seed which she had sown in blood, though 
it had grown to be a vigorous plant, had borne no fruit ; 
and when she next comes upon the scene, it is when 
brokenhearted and dying she utters in her sleep those 
fearful thoughts which, in her watchful moments, 
she had kept closed up in her own sad, yet hardened 
heart. 

After Macbeth and his ambitious wife, there are few 
strongly marked characters in the play, except Macduff, 
thane of Fife, who had fled with Malcolm and Donal- 
bain, and on whom Macbeth wreaks vengeance by 
destroying his wife and children. Macduff gladly 
joins Malcolm in his vengeance on Macbeth, and at 
one point of the play Macduff, in the hands of a good 
actor, overshadows Macbeth in the grandeur of his 
declamation for revenge. Duncan is a inild and vir- 
tuous sovereign ; but he calls for little further com- 
ment : the softness of his nature is traceable in the timid 
characters of his two sons, who, by their disgraceful 
flight, at first incur the suspicion of being his murder- 
ers. Banquo is the opposite of Macbeth, being both a 
brave and virtuous general. The witches solicit him 
also during sleep to some horrible act, but he prays 
against a repetition of the temptation, while Macbeth 
is on the watch for opportunity. 

This great tragedy conveys a grand moral precept: 
poetical justice is dealt out rigidly to its chief actors. 



MACBETH. 89 



Lady Macbeth, as the greatest criminal, is the greatest 
sufferer : madness, and a supposed suicide, close her 
career of guilt and gloom ; and her husband meets his 
death by the same violent means as those by which he 
had attained his regal but wretched eminence, while 
the punishment of both is brought about by their own 
evil actions. 

Scenes of terror, such as are found in this tragedy, 
stand alone ; otherwise, says Schlegel, ' the tragic 
muse might exchange her mask for the head of 
Medusa.' 



90 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING JOHN. 



The materials of the present play are to be found 
in the Chronicles of Holinshed ; Shakespeare, how- 
ever, has closely followed the incidents of a former 
drama, entitled 'The troublesome Raigne of John 
king of England, with the Discoverie of King Richard 
Cordelion's base Son, vulgarly named the Bastard 
Faulconbridge ; also the Death of King John at 
Swinstead Abbey : as it was sundry times publikely 
acted by the Queenes Majesties Players in the hon- 
ourable Cittie of London.' This piece was printed 
anonymously in the year 1591 : on its republication in 
1611, the bookseller, for whom it was printed, fraud- 
ulently inserted the letters ' W. Sh. ' in the title-page ; 
and in a third edition in 1622, the name of 'William 
Shakespeare ' is inserted at full length. Pope attrib- 
utes the composition of this crude performance to the 
joint pens of Shakespeare and Rowley, though with- 
out stating his authority. 

This tragedy is supposed by Malone to have been 
written in 1596, though it was not printed till 1623. 
It is the only one of our poet's uncontested plays that 
is not entered in the books of the Stationers' Com- 
pany. 

'The tragedy of King John,' says Dr. Johnson, 
' though not written with the utmost power of Shakes- 
peare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of 
incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very 




W. VON KAULBACH . FIN3 



PRINCE ARTHUR AND HUJ 

Ji'i'iri ,Jn/'i;i -J rf Jl. Scry if / 



KING JOHN. 91 



affecting; and the character of the Bastard contains 
that mixture of greatness and levity, which this author 
delighted to exhibit. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King John. 

Prince Henry, his son ; afterwards King Henry III. 

Arthur, duke of Bretagne, son of Geffrey, late duke 

of Bretagne, the elder brother of King John. 
William Mareshall, earl of Pembroke. 
Geffrey Fitz-Peter, earl of Essex, chief justiciary 

of England. 
William Longsword, earl of Salisbury. 
Robert Bigot, earl of Norfolk. 
Hubert de Burgh, chamberlain to the king. 
Robert Faulconbridge, son of Sir Robert Faulcon- 

bridge. 
Philip Faulconbridge, his half-brother; bastard 

son to King Richard the First. 
James Gurney, servant to Lady Faulconbridge. 
Peter of Pomfret, a prophet. 

Philip, king of France. 

Lewis, the Dauphin. 

Archduke of Austria. 

Cardinal Pandulph, the pope's legate. 

Melun, a French lord. 

Chatillon, ambassador from France to King John. 

Elinor, widow of King Henry II. and mother of 
King John. 



92 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



Constance, mother to Arthur. 

Blanch, daughter to Alphonso, king of Castile, and 

niece to King John. 
Lady Faulconbridge, mother to the Bastard and 

Robert Faulconbridge. 

Lords, Ladies, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, 
Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attend- 
ants. 

Scene, sometimes in England, and sometimes in 
France. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



At the death of Richard Coeur de Lion, the English 
crown is seized by John from the feeble hands of his 
nephew Arthur, the rightful heir, whose claims are 
supported by Philip, king of France : the prospect 
of uniting the English territories with his own king- 
dom, by the marriage of the Dauphin with a niece 
of John, induces the French monarch to withdraw 
his protection from Arthur, when the arrival of a 
legate from the Pope prevents the completion of the 
treaty, and rekindles the flames of war. Philip is 
defeated in a general engagement ; and Arthur, now a 
captive, is committed by his uncle to the custody 
of one Hubert, with secret orders to put him to 
death. Softened by the innocence and entreaties 
of the youth, Hubert ventures to disobey the cruel 



KING JOHN. 93 



mandate ; Arthur loses his life in an endeavor to 
effect his escape from the castle in which he is con- 
fined, and his lifeless body is discovered by some dis- 
contented nobles, who are resolved to emancipate 
themselves from the thraldom of the tyrant John by 
the desperate measure of inviting the Dauphin to 
assume the crown, under the sanction of the papal 
court. On the arrival of the young prince, John is 
compelled to purchase a disgraceful peace by a pusil- 
lanimous surrender of his regal dignity into the hands 
of the cardinal legate, who now hastens to arrest the 
progress of the Dauphin. The mediation proves 
ineffectual, and hostilities are about to recommence, 
when the intelligence of the loss of a large supply 
of French troops on the Goodwin Sands, together 
with the defection of the English auxiliaries, damps 
the ardor of the French prince, and disposes him to 
terms of peace. In the meantime John is poisoned 
by a monk, and is succeeded in his government by his 
son, Henry the Third. 

In considering this pky without any reference to 
history, we must speak of it very highly ; though des- 
titute of the poetic halo which beautifies many of the 
bard's more imaginative dramas, it is still invested 
with a warlike and solemn grandeur. We feel that 
the theme is kingdoms and the chief actors princes. 
The air seems to resound with the brazen clang of 
trumpets and the clash of arms ; the sunbeams gild 
the banners of rival armies, and dance upon the 
plumed crests of thousands of brave knights. The 
secret motives of monarchs are divined with the accu- 
racy of a seer, and the hearts of kings laid bare in 
the sight of the people. The interest never flags for 
a moment ; the play has several strongly marked char- 



94 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

acters, most effectively grouped- together. The dark 
portrait of John is finely contrasted with the bold 
chivalrous bastard, Faulconbridge, 'the very spirit 
of Plantagenet,' who appears to be entirely a creation 
of the poet. He is the sunshine of the picture. His 
mirthful sallies relieve the oppressed spirits, after 
some of the painful tragic scenes, and chase away the 
gloomy shadows which seem rapidly closing around us. 
His fine natural spirits, shrewd worldly sense, un- 
daunted courage, and witty, sparkling discourse, be' 
speak him a son of the lion-hearted Richard. The 
brave, reckless, but manly-tempered hero of Palestine 
seems to live again in him, somewhat modified by dif- 
ference of station. Witnessing the interested motives 
of all around him, he exclaims, ' Gain, be my lord ! 
for I will worship thee ; ' but he is an honest soldier, 
and serves the king with an undcviating integrity that 
was worthy of a nobler master. In this character the 
poet has shown that great talents and energy employed 
in a bad cause seldom enjoy a lengthened triumph ; 
but, like an ill-manned vessel on an unexplored sea, 
drift about in uncertainty and peril. Faulconbridge 
becomes a serious man, and accumulated disasters 
wring from his iron nature a prayer to heaven not to 
tempt him above his power. 

Lady Constance is an instance of maternal affection 
and dangerous ambition. These united feelings 
prompt her to claim the crown of England for her 
child, and thus to plunge the kingdom into a fearful 
war to gratify her feelings, and to advance, her son. 
The title of John was at the least as good as that of 
Arthur, if not less liable to objection. But in the 
final anguish of the bereaved mother we forget the 
ambition of the woman ; the intensity of her grief is 



KING JOHN. 95 

painfully affecting, and few can listen to the passionate 
exclamations wrung from her breaking heart, when 
Arthur is captured by his uncle John, without a sym- 
pathizing tear. Her question to the cardinal, whether 
she shall know her child in heaven ? and her rejoinder 
to the expostulation of King Philip — 

' Grief fills up the room of my absent child,' etc., 

pierce every bosom, soften every heart. The character 
of Arthur is made sweetly touching from the helpless- 
ness of infancy, and the extreme gentleness of his 
nature. The poet, in deviating slightly from historic 
truth, gained, in this instance, a great dramatic advan- 
tage. The want of ambition and utter unobtrusiveness 
of the young prince endear him to us : 

' So I were out of prison and kept sheep, 
I should be as merry as the day is long.' 

That is his modest thought ; happy had it been for 
him could it have been realized ; but the grim red- 
handed fiend of murder dogs his guileless steps, and 
drives him to a blood-stained grave. 

There are two scenes which stand prominently out 
from the rest : the one where the troubled tyrant 
works upon Hubert to undertake the death of Arthur, 
in which the fiendish character of John is shown with- 
out a veil ; and the other where Hubert endeavors to 
execute his revolting commission of burning out the 
eyes of the young prince, but is diverted from his 
savage purpose by the poor boy's tears and entreaties. 
These two scenes deserve to be ranked with the grand- 
est tragic efforts of the poet. The scene where John 
recriminates the guilt, of Arthur's death upon Hubert 
21 



96 COMPENDIUM OF TPIE PLAYS. 

and equivocates respecting the warrant for it, is also 
highly Shakespearian. 

The closing scene is touched by a master hand ; we 
pity the death-struck wretch writhing in anguish be- 
fore us, who is described as singing in his agony. 
Painful is his reply to his son's inquiry as to his state, 
solemnly affecting from its profound and irredeemable 
misery : 

'Poisoned: ill fare I dead, forsook, cast off!' 

A terrible retribution has come upon the tyrant ; 
body and soul seem perishing before us. 




.'■■■■ 

;,:,,, i i,-/</, ,,>,/ //., . let I Seen, V 



KING RICHARD II. 97 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF * KING 
RICHARD II.' 



This play comprises little more than the last two 
years of the reign of Richard II. The action of the 
drama commences with Bolingbroke's challenge to 
Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, on an accusation of high 
treason, which took place in 1398, and it concludes 
with the murder of King Richard at Pomfret castle 
towards the end of 1400, or the beginning of the fol- 
lowing year. Holinshed furnished the facts which the 
poet dramatized : the speech of the bishop of Carlisle 
in favor of Richard's divine I'ight, and exemption from 
human jurisdiction, is copied, almost verbatim, from 
that old historian. 

The year 1593 is the date assigned by Malone to the 
production of this drama, which was printed four 
times during the lifetime of our author ; the first two 
editions appearing in 1597 and 1598, without the scene 
of the deposition, which was first appended in ]G08. 
The next impression was that of 1615. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Richard the Second. 

Edmund op Langley, duke of York, ) uncles to the 

John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, J king. 



98 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Henry, surnamed Boiingbroke, duke of Hereford, son 

to John of Gaunt ; afterwards King Henry IV. 
Duke op Aumerle, son to the duke of York. 
Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. 
Duke of Surrey. 
Earl of Salisbury. 
Earl Berkley. 
Bushy, ^ 

Bagot, V creatures to King Richard. 
Green, ) 

Earl of Northumberland. 
Henry Percy, his son. 

Lord Ross. Lord Willoughby. Lord Fitzwater. 
Bishop of Carlisle. Abbot of Westminster. 
Lord Marshal ; and another Lord. 
Sir Pierce of Exton. Sir Stephen Scroop. 
Captain of a band of Welshmen. 

Queen to King Richard. 
Duchess of Gloster. 
Duchess of York. 
Lady attending on the Queen. 

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, two Gardeners, 
Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants. 

Scene, dispersedly in England and Wales. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Henry Bolingbroke, eldest son of John of Gaunt, 
duke of Lancaster, accuses Mowbray, duke of Nor- 



KING EICHAKD II. 99 

folk, of high treason, and, in confirmation of his 
assertion, challenges him to single combat, which is 
eagerly accepted by his opponent. At the appointed 
time, the combatants enter the lists, and the conflict 
is about to commence, when the king interposes, and 
pronounces a sentence of perpetual banishment on 
Norfolk, while the exile of Bolingbroke is limited to 
the period of six years. Shortly after the departure 
of his son, John of G-aunt dies, and his property and 
estates are unjustly seized by the indigent monarch. 
Stung by this scandalous act of oppression, Boling- 
broke takes advantage of the king's absence i» Ire- 
land, and arrives in England, where, by his artful 
professions of loyalty, together with solemn protesta- 
tions of circumscribing his views within the reason- 
able demand of a repeal of his exile and a recovery 
of his patrimony, he insensibly acquires a power too 
formidable to be resisted ; and the unfortunate Richard 
is compelled to resign his crown into the hands of his 
cousin ; after which he is confined in Pom fret castle, 
where he is put to death by the connivance of Boling- 
broke. 

Between the death of John and the commencement 
of this play four kings had successively worn the crown 
of England, and a period of nearly two centuries had 
elapsed ; but this and the seven plays which follow are 
one continuous history. A certain connection is kept 
up between them, and they may be termed one perfect 
historical romance, of which the different plays con- 
stitute the books, and the acts and scenes the chap- 
ters. Disagreeing with Schlegel as to the invariable 
historical fidelity of these productions, and condemn- 
ing the adulatory spirit and eager ' hero-worship ' 
which would call that history which the poet only 



100 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

intended as a romance, I still gladly avail myself of 
the happily expressed thought of the great German 
critic, and say that this series of dramas 'furnishes 
examples of the political course of the world, applica- 
ble to all times. ' This mirror of 7cings should be the 
manual of young princes ; from it they may learn the 
intrinsic dignity of their hereditary vocation, but they 
will also learn from it the difficulties of their situation, 
the dangers of usurpation, the inevitable fall of ty- 
ranny, which buries itself under its attempts to obtain 
a firmer foundation ; lastly, the ruinous consequences 
of the weaknesses, errors, and crimes of kings, for 
whole nations and many subsequent generations. 

These historic dramas must be regarded as lofty 
fictions, fictions teaching truth ; great political para- 
bles based on facts, but rearing their high and graceful 
pinnacles into the realms of imagination. But if they 
are pronounced to be strict literal history, then must 
we say that much of history is merely what Napo- 
leon declared it to be — ' a fiction agreed upon.' 

Schlegel says : " In ' King Richard the Second ' the 
poet exhibits to us a noble kingly nature, at first ob- 
scured by levity and the errors of unbridled youth, 
and afterwards purified by misfortune, and rendered 
more highly splendid and illustrious. When he has 
lost the love and reverence of his subjects, and is on 
the point of losing also his throne, he then feels with 
painful inspiration the elevated vocation of the kingly 
dignity and its prerogatives over personal merit and 
changeable institutions. When the earthly crown has 
fallen from off his head he first appears as a king 
whose innate nobility no humiliation can annihilate. 
This is felt by a poor groom : he is shocked that his 
master's favorite horse should have carried the proud 



KING EICHARD II. 101 

Bolingbroke at his coronation ; he visits the captive 
king in his prison and shames the desertion of the 
great. The political history of the deposition is repre- 
sented with extraordinary knowledge of the world — 
the ebb of fortune on the one hand and the swelling 
tide on the other, which carries everything along with 
it ; while Bolingbroke acts as a king, and his adherents 
behave towards him as if he really were so, he still 
continues to give out that he comes with an armed 
band merely for the sake of demanding his birthright 
and the removal of abuses. The usurpation has been 
long completed before the word is pronounced and the 
thing publicly avowed. John of Gaunt is a model of 
chivalrous truth : he stands there like a pillar of the 
olden time which he had outlived. 



102 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING HENRY 
IV.'— PART I. 



This drama was first entered at Stationer's Hall 
February 35, 1597-8: its production is assigned by 
Malone to the year 1597, while Mr. Chalmers and Dr. 
Drake suppose it to have been written during the pre- 
ceding year. No fewer than five quarto editions of 
this play were published during the lifetime of our 
author; in 1598, 1599, 1004, 1608 and 1013. 

The action of the First Part of Henry the Fourth 
begins immediately after the defeat of the Scots at 
Holmedon in 1402, and terminates with the defeat and 
death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury about ten months 
afterwards. 

Dr. Johnson observes, that ' Shakespeare has appar- 
ently designed a regular connection of these dramatic 
histories from Richard the Second to Henry the Fifth. 
King Henry, at the end of Richard the Second, de- 
clares his purpose to visit the Holy Land, which he 
resumes in the first speech of this play. The com- 
plaint made by King Henry, in the last act of Richard 
the Second, of the wildness of his son, prepares the 
reader for the frolics which are here to be recounted, 
and the characters which are now to be exhibited.' 

It may be remarked, however, that the introduction 
of the prince at this early period of history is to be 
attributed solely to the desire of the poet to produce 
dramatic effect ; since, at the time when the conspiracy 




CHARLES FISHER AS ' 

First Part of JUri.g Ilervry IV, .'lot /J S, 



KING HENEY IV.— PAET I. 103 

of the cluke of Aumerle was discovered, Prince Henry 
was but twelve years old ; and, therefore, too young as 
yet to be a partaker in the debaucheries of London 
taverns. It is also extremely probable, that the licen- 
tious habits, attributed to him by the English chroni- 
clers of the sixteenth century, have been greatly exag- 
gerated. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



[• sons to the king. 
' [ friends to the king. 



King Henry the Fourth. 

Henry, prince of Wales, 

Prince John of Lancaster, 

Earl of Westmoreland, 

Sir Walter Blunt, 

Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester. 

Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. 

Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his son. 

Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. 

Scroop, archbishop of York. 

Archibald, earl of Douglas. 

Owen Glendower. 

Sir Richard Vernon. 

Sir John Falstaff. 

Sir Michael, a friend of the archbishop of York. 

Poins. 

Gadshill. 

Peto. 

Bardolph. 

Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer. 



104 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to 

Mortimer. 
Mrs. Quickly, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. 

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Draw- 
ers, two Carriers, Travellers and Attendants. 

Scene, England. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The chief characters in this play are Falstaff, Prince 
Henry, Percy and King Henry. After the deposition 
and death of the unfortunate Richard, the attention 
of King Henry is directed to the incursions of the 
Scots, who, under conduct of Douglas, advance to the 
borders of England, where they are totally routed by 
the celebrated Percy, surnamed Hotspur. The intel- 
ligence of this victory no sooner reaches the ears of the 
king, than, regardless of the debt of gratitude due to 
the powerful family of the Percies, he demands the 
prisoners taken in the late struggle, among whom was 
the renowned Douglas ; contrary to the practice of 
those times, when the custody and destination of cap- 
tives were determined at the discretion of the conquer- 
ing general. Exasperated at this unexpected mandate, 
Hotspur dismisses all his prisoners without ransom, 
and with his relatives and dependents raises the 
standard of revolt against the sovereign, whose eleva- 
tion they had so recently effected. Having formed a 
treaty of alliance with the Scottish and Welsh leaders, 



KING HENRY IV.— PART I. 105 

the insurgents arrive at Shrewsbury, where they are 
encountered by the king in person. A decisive battle 
ensues, in which Hotspur is slain, and the rebels 
sustain a signal defeat. The only two lady characters 
are Ladies Percy and Mortimer, the former a very 
pretty character. The remainder of this drama is oc- 
cupied with the amusing detail of the frolics of the 
Prince of Wales and his merry companions, among 
whom Sir John Falstaff occupies the most conspicuous 
part. The meeting of Sir John, Poins and Prince Hal 
and their pranks at the Boar's Head Tavern in East- 
cheap, and elsewhere with their attendants, Bardolph, 
Peto and Mrs. Quickly, hostess of the tavern, and 
their superb fooling of Sir John in the robbery at 
Gad's Hill, form one the of most jovial series of pic- 
tures ever presented in literature. 

The transactions contained in the 'First Part of 
King Henry IV.' are comprised within the period of 
about ten months ; for the action commences with the 
news brought of Hotspur having defeated the Scots 
under Archibald Earl of Douglas, at Holmedon (or 
Halidown Hall), which battle was fought on Holy- 
rood day (the 14th of September), 1402 ; and it closes 
with the battle of Shrewsbury on Saturday, the 21 st 
of July, 1403. 



106 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF ' KING HENRY 
IV.'— PART II. 



The composition of this play has been assigned by 
Malone to the year 1599, while Mr. Chalmers and Dr. 
Drake suppose it to have been ■written as early as 1596 
or 1597. The play of 'Henry IV.' is mentioned in 
the list of Shakespeare's works, in Meres' 'Wits' 
Treasury,' 1598 ; and, by the Epilogue to this drama, 
it appears to have preceded 'King Henry V.,' which 
is fixed with some accuracy to 1 599. It was entered at 
Stationers' Hall, August 23d, 1600, and the first two 
editions of it in quarto were published in the same 
year. Its action comprehends a period of nine years, 
commencing with Hotspur's death in 1403, and termi- 
nating with the coronation of King Henry V. in 
1412-13. 'These two plays,' says Dr. Johnson, 'will 
appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without 
ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, 
that the second is merely a sequel to the first ; to be 
two only because they are too long to be one. ' 

In reading Holinshed for these plays, our poet's eye 
was evidently eager in quest of scattered hints of per- 
sonal character, and on these, whenever he was fortu- 
nate enough to meet with them, his exuberant imagi- 
nation worked with boldness. The dismissal of Fal- 
staff, as one of Henry's dissolute companions, is con- 
formable to the old historian, but his committal to the 




E. GRtlTZNER, FLN2C. 



FAL STAFF AND HIS PAGE. 
Second Part of 'Mrig Hervru //'. let I., Seen*!/. 



KING HENRY IV.— PART II. 107 

Fleet is an act of severity volunteered by Shakespeare. 
A reference to Stowe in this case would have been 
eminently useful to him : the prince's companions are 
there disposed of in a manner gratifying to the feelings 
of humanity and consistent with the claims of justice. 
'After his coronation, King Henry called unto him 
all those young lords and gentlemen who were the 
followers of his young acts, to every one of whom he 
gave rich gifts ; and then commanded, that as many as 
would change their manners, as he intended to do, 
should abide with him in his court ; and to all that 
would persevere in their former like conversation, he 
gave express commandment, upon pain of their heads, 
never after that day to come in his presence. ' 

'None of Shakespeare's plays,' adds Dr. Johnson, 
' are more read than the First and Second Parts of 
Henry the Fourth : perhaps no author has ever in 
two plays afforded so much delight. The great events 
are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depends on 
them ; the slighter occurrences are diverting, and, 
except one or two, sufficiently probable ; the incidents 
are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention ; 
and the characters diversified with the utmost nicety 
of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature 
of man. 

' The prince, who is the hero both of the comic and 
tragic part, is a young man of great abilities and vio- 
lent passions ; whose sentiments are right, though his 
actions are wrong ; whose virtues are obscured by 
negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by 
levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than 
vicious, but when the responsibility of succession to 
the crown comes in his turn he proves himself a true 
king.' 



108 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



his sons. 



King Henry the Fourth. 

Henry, prince of Wales, afterwards King 
Henry V. , 

Thomas, duke of Clarence, 

Prince John op Lancaster, afterwards 
(2 Henry V.) duke of Bedford, 

Prince Humphrey of Gloster, after- 
wards (2 Henry V.) duke of Gloster, 

Earl op Warwick ; "j 

Earl op Westmoreland, > of the king's party. 

Gower, Harcourt, i 

Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 

A Gentleman attending on the Chief Justice. 

Earl op Northumberland, 

Scroop, archbishop of York, 

Lord Mowbray, Lord Hastings, 

Lord Bardolph, Sir John Coleville, 

Travers and Morton, domestics of Northumberland. 

Falstaff, Bardolph, Pistol, and Page. 

Poins and Peto, attendants on Prince Henry. 

Shallow and Silence, country justices. 

Davy, servant to Shallow. 

Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bullcalf, 
recruits. 

Fang and Snare, sheriff's officers. 

Rumor. A Porter. 

A Dancer, speaker of the Epilogue. 

Lady Northumberland. 
Lady Percy. 



enemies 
to the 
king. 




^ 3 



< > 



in £ 



KING HENRY IV.— PART II. 109 

Hostess Quickly. 
Doll Tear-sheet. 

Lords and other Attendants ; Officers, Soldiers, Mes- 
senger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, etc. 

Scene, England. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



After the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrews- 
bury, the king despatches his son Prince John of Lan- 
caster and the earl of Westmoreland, at the head of 
a large army, to encounter the northern insurgents, 
under the command of Scroop, archbishop of York. 
The two armies meet at Gualtree Forest in Yorkshire, 
where Prince John, unwilling to hazard a general en- 
gagement, invites the discontented chieftains to a con- 
ference, with whom he concludes a treaty, promising a 
full redress of their alleged grievances, and stipulating 
for a dismissal of the troops on either side. The royal- 
ist forces however receive secret instructions, and, by 
an unparalleled act of perfidy, are commanded to de- 
stroy the disbanded insurgents, while the archbishop 
and his coadjutors are led to immediate execution. In 
the meantime, Prince Henry is summoned from the 
society of his dissipated companions to attend the 
death-bed of his father, whom he finds in a swoon, 
with the crown on his pillow. Judging him to have 
breathed his last, the prince removes the diadem ; — an 
act which incurs the bitter reproaches of the king 



110 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

when he\awakes : his son justifies his conduct to the 
satisfaction of the dying monarch ; and no sooner as- 
sumes the regal dignity, than he dismisses forever 
from his presence Sir John Falstaff and the com- 
panions of his youthful excesses, and resolves to sig- 
nalize his reign by the splendor of his achievements 
and the virtues of his character. The success of Fal- 
staff at the Battle of Shrewsbury set up the old knight 
in every way — in purse, in character and influence. 
The revels are continued and some new characters 
introduced : Doll Tear-sheet, Davy, Shallow's servant, 
and the scene of the recruits besides other mirthful 
scenes at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap. 

J. W. Singer says : The historical dramas of Shake- 
speare have become the popular history. Vain at- 
tempts have been made by Walpole to vindicate the 
character of King Richard III., and in later times by 
Mr. Luders, to prove that the youthful dissipation 
ascribed to King Henry V. is without foundation. 
The arguments are probable and ingeniously urged, 
but we still cling to our early notions of ' that mad 
chap — that same sword and buckler, Prince of Wales.' 
No plays were ever more read, nor does the inimita- 
ble, all powerful genius of the poet ever shine out 
more than in the two parts of King Henry IV., which 
may be considered as one long drama divided. 

It has been said that 'Falstaff is the summit of 
Shakespeare's comic invention,' and we may conse- 
quently add the most inimitable comic character ever 
delineated ; for who could invent like Shakespeare ? 
Falstaff is now to us hardly a creature of the imagina- 
tion. He is so definitely and distinctly drawn that the 
mere reader of these dramas has the complete impres- 
sion of a personal acquaintance. He is surrounded by 



KING HENRY IV.— PART II. Ill 

a group of comic personages from time to time, each 
of which would have been sufficient to throw any ordi- 
nary creation into the shade, but they only serve to 
make the super-eminent humor of the knight doubly 
conspicuous. AVhat can come nigher to truth and 
real individual nature than those admirable delinea- 
tions, Shallow and Silence? How irresistibly comic 
are all the scenes in which Falstaff is made to humor 
the fatuity and vanity of this precious pair ! 

The historic characters are delineated with a felicity 
and individuality not inferior in any respect. Harry 
Percy is a creation of the first order ; and our favorite 
hare-brained Prince of Wales, in whom mirthful pleas- 
antry and midnight dissipation are mixed up with 
heroic dignity and generous feeling, is a rival worthy 
of him. Owen Glendower is another personification, 
managed with the most consummate skill ; and the 
graver characters are sustained and opposed to each 
other in a manner peculiar to our great poet. 
22 



112 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING 
HENRY V.' 



From a passage in the chorus at the commence- 
ment of the fifth act, this drama appears to have heen 
written during the absence of the earl of Essex in 
Ireland, between April and September, 1599, those 
being the dates of that nobleman's departure and re- 
turn. It was entered at Stationers' Hall August 14, 
1600, and three editions were published before the 
death of our author; namely, in 1600, 1602, and 
1608. In all of these he choruses are omitted, and 
the play commences with the fourth speech of the 
second scene. The historical transactions occupy little 
more than the first six yeai's of the reign of the illus- 
trious monarch whose exploits are here commemorated, 
the materials of which have been derived from the 
Chronicles of Holinshed, and an older play, entitled 
'The famous Victories of Henry the Fift, containing 
the honorable Battle of Agincourt,' which was en- 
tered at Stationers' Hall, May 2, 1594. 

'This play,' says Dr. Johnson, 'has many scenes 
of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The 
character of the king is well supported, except in his 
courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal 
nor the grandeur of Henry. The humor of Pistol is 
very happily continued : his character has perhaps 
been the model of all the bullies that have yet ap- 
peared on the English stage. The lines given to the 




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KING HENRY V. 113 

Chorus have many admirers ; but the truth is, that in 
them a little may be praised, and much must be for- 
given : nor can it be easily discovered why the intelli- 
gence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this 
play than in many others where it is omitted. The 
great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrow- 
ness of the last act, which a very little diligence might 
have easily avoided.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Fifth. 

Duke op Gloster, ) 

Duke of Bedford, j brothers to thc kin S- 

Duke of Exeter, uncle to the king. 

Duke of York, cousin to the king. 

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and War- 
wick. 

Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Bishop of Ely. 

Earl of Cambridge, ~) 

Lord Scroop, >■ conspirators against the king. 

Sir Thomas Grey, ) 

Sir Thomas Erpingiiam, Gower, Fluellen, Mac- 
morris, Jamy, officers in King Henry's army. 

Bates, Court, Williams, soldiers in the same. 

Nvm, Bardolph, Pistol, formerly servants to Fal- 
staff, now soldiers in the same. 

Boy, servant to them. A Herald. Chorus. 

Charles the Sixth, king of France. 



114 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Lewis, the Dauphin. 

Dukes op Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon. 

The Constable op France. 

Rambures and GrRANDPREE, French lords. 

Governor op Harpleur. 

Montjoy, a French herald. 

Ambassadors to the king of England. 

Isabel, queen of France. 
Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel. 
Alice, a lady attending on the princess Katharine. 
Quickly, Pistol's wife, an hostess. 

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, 
Messengers, and Attendants. 

The Scene, at the beginning of the play, lies in Eng- 
land ; but afterwards, wholly in France. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Henry is no sooner in possession of the English 
crown, than he prepares to fulfil the injunctions of his 
dying father, and to eiface from the minds of his sub- 
jects the defects in his title by the splendor of foreign 
conquest ; in pursuance of which design he now re- 
vives an antiquated claim to the sceptre of France, 
which he prepares to advocate by assembling a powerful 
army. The French court, intimidated at these dem- 
onstrations of hostility, basely endeavor to procure the 



KING HENRY V. .115 

assassination of the English monarch by profusely 
bribing three powerful noblemen, Cambridge, Scroop 
and Grey. The conspiracy is brought to light and 
punished, and Henry safely arrives in France, and 
takes the town of Harfleur by capitulation. Sickness 
and want of provisions at length diminish his army, 
and compel him to retreat in the face of an enemy 
five times his superior in numbers, who force him to 
risk a general engagement near the village of Agin- 
court, where he obtains a complete victory, which ren- 
ders further resistance unavailing. The French king 
is now reduced to the necessity of submitting to the 
hard terms imposed on him by his conqueror, who is 
publicly recognized as heir to the crown and united in 
marriage to the princess Katharine. 

The poet has carefully elaborated the character 
of Henry ; he introduces him into three dramas, car- 
ries him uncontaminated through scenes of riot and 
dissipation, represents him repenting his lost hours 
with tears of shame and affection, at the feet of his 
father, and, on his accession to the "golden rigol," 
after winning the good graces of prelates, nobility, and 
people, and passing undaunted through a fearful 
ordeal, such as would have overwhelmed many a stout 
heart, leaves him on a summit of militarj'' glory more 
brilliant than had been achieved even by his brave and 
illustrious ancestors. The fine description by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury of the King's reformation, 
and the sudden blaze of those virtues and accom- 
plishments which he was not suspected to have pos- 
sessed, has been aptly applied to Shakespeare him- 
self. Like Henry, the wildness of his youth promised 
not the brilliant performances of his manhood. With 
the poet, as with the prince, 



116 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

' Consideration like an angel came, 
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him ; 
Leaving his body as a paradise, 
To envelop and contain celestial spirits.' 

The introductory dialogue between the two bishops, 
independent of its exquisite beauty, easily and natur- 
ally prepares us for the change of the frolicsome idle 
prince to the serious and majestic king. 

As a monarch he is drawn with great spirit and 
power ; he is sincere, magnanimous, eloquent, and 
pious, though it must be confessed his piety is often 
of a very convenient character. His address to his 
army before the walls of Harfleur is a model of mili- 
tary oratory, full of manly fire and enthusiasm. We 
can fancy the soldiers listening with set teeth, dilated 
nostrils, and flashing eyes, and then again following 
him with resistless fury to the breach in the walls of 
the besieged city. In his warning to the governor 
of Harfleur is contained the most terribly eloquent 
description of war in the English language. 

The mirthful and early pranks of Henry are not for- 
gotten in this play ; his acceptance of the glove of the 
soldier as a challenge, and bestowal of it upon Fluellen, 
show that his sportive disposition is not extinguished, 
but tempered by rank and responsibility of station. 
Still he turns moralist in his extremity, and exclaims 
to his brother : 

' There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out.' 

Henry's claim upon France was politic but ungen- 
erous, for that unhappy country was distracted by 
internal broils, possessed a lunatic for a king, and was 
laid waste by the furious contentions of its own 
nobles. So far from his having any title to the crown 



KING HENRY V. 117 

of France, his right to the sovereignty of his own 
country would not bear examination ; and it was to 
evade inquiry, and that his nobility might not have 
leisure to conspire against him in England, that he led 
them to war against France ; and the archbishop en- 
courages and justifies the design, that Henry may not 
pry too closely into the vast possessions of the church. 
Such are the secret springs of war and conquest. 

In many of his historical plays, but chiefly in this, 
does Shakespeare evince a patriotic love of his native 
country ; his language is well calculated to excite a 
natural pride in English bosoms, and we share the en- 
thusiasm with which he paints the hardihood and 
prowess of his countrymen ; but when we reflect upon 
the past conflicts with France, we should remember 
that an insular position is exceedingly advantageous. 
England, when governed by a powerful military king, 
always took advantage of any calamity in France, to 
make invasions which its temporary weakness and 
the sea prevented it from readily returning. The 
different occupations of the two armies and their 
leaders on the eve of battle are pointed out in a man- 
ner from which the poet intended us to infer the oppo- 
site character of the two nations. The French nobility 
are engaged in frivolous conversation respecting their 
horses and their armor, and in playing at dice for the 
prisoners whom they assume they shall capture the 
next day. The English are occupied in patient watch- 
ing and serious meditation upon the fearfully unequal 
contest in which a few hours will involve them. This 
comparison is hardly just, but a little exultation was 
both natural and pardonable in a poet living at a 
period not more distant from the event than was the 
reign of Elizabeth. 



I 



118 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

In this play we hear the last of Falstaff ; his death 
is related by Mrs. Quickly. We cannot help feeling 
sad for the poor old knight, dying in an inn, sur- 
rounded only by rude dependents, and the faithful 
hostess, whom we respect for her kind attachment to 
him to the last. No wife or child is near ; no gentle 
kindred hand to do kind offices in the hour of weak- 
ness and despondency. In his half-delirious moments 
his last joke was made upon the flea on Bardolph's 
nose, which he said ' was a black soul burning in hell- 
fire.' The scene between the Welsh, Irish, and 
Scotch captains, each speaking in his peculiar patois, 
is very humorous, but these three do not amount to 
one Falstaff. The episode between Pistol and the 
French soldier, whom, by his fierce looks, he frightens 
into paying a good ransom for his life, is much richer ; 
but the crown of mirth in this play is where the 
Welshman cudgels Pistol, and makes him eat his leek 
for having mocked him respecting it. All the group 
that surrounded Falstaff are here disposed of; Bar- 
dolph and Nym are hanged, the boy is killed by the 
flying French soldiers after the battle, Mrs. Quickly 
dies in the hospital, and Pistol sneaks home in disgrace 
and obscurity. 

Although there is tragic matter enough in this play, 
it ends like a comedy — with a marriage of convenience. 
Henry espoused the princess Katharine on the 2d 
of June, 1418, in the church of St. John at Troyes. 
The next day, after he had given a splendid banquet, 
it was proposed by the French that the event should 
be honored by a series of tournaments and public 
rejoicings. This Henry would not sanction. 'I 
pray,' said he to the French monarch, 'my lord the 
king to permit, and I command his servants and 



KING HENEY V. 119 

mine to be all ready to-morrow morning to go and lay 
siege to Sens, wherein are our enemies : there every 
man may have jousting and tourneying enough, and 
may give proof of his prowess ; for there is no finer 
prowess than that of doing justice on the wicked, in 
order that the poor people may breathe and live. ' In 
the exhibition of this courage, activity, and feeling for 
the lower orders, lay the secret of Henry's popularity. 
He lived four years after his marriage, a period which 
Shakespeare has left unrecorded ; but the death of 
this heroic king was a scene for the poet. Still only 
in his thirty-fourth year, a conqueror in the full blaze 
of military glory, a king beloved by his people almost 
to idolatry, the husband of a young, beautiful, and 
accomplished wife, and the father of an infant son, 
this world was to him a demi-paradise, an earthly 
Eden ; still he breathed his last without one complaint, 
and was himself calm and resigned, though all around 
wept as they promised to protect his wife and child. 
The solemn pomp displayed at his funeral was ex- 
traordinary ; no such procession had hitherto attended 
the remains of any English king. His funeral car was 
preceded and flanked by a crowd of heralds, banner- 
bearers, and it was followed by some hundreds of 
knights and esquires in black armor and plumes ; 
while, far in the rear, travelled the young widow, with 
a gorgeous and numerous retinue. She, however, 
does not appear to have been inconsolable, for she was 
married again shortly after Henry's death to a Welsh 
gentleman, Sir Owen Tudor, one of the handsomest 
men of his time. She brought him two sons, of whom 
the eldest, Edmund, was created earl of Richmond, 
and his son afterwards ascended the English throne, 
under the title of Henry the Seventh. 



120 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF ' KING HENRY 
VI.'— PART I. 



This piece is supposed by Malone to have made its 
appearance on the stage about the year 1588, and to 
have been formerly known by the appellation of ' The 
Historical Play of King Henry VI.' The learned 
commentator has endeavored to prove that it was 
written neither by Shakespeare nor by the author of 
the other two plays detailing the events of a subse- 
quent period of the same reign ; and these conjectures 
are confirmed by the manuscript accounts of Hen- 
slowe, proprietor of the Rose Tavern, Bankside, which 
have been since discovered at Dulwich College. The 
entry is dated the 3d of March, 1591 ; and the play 
being the property of Lord Strange's company, and 
performed at the Rose Theatre, with neither of which 
Shakespeare had at any time the smallest connection, 
the testimony of Malone' s position as to the antiquity, 
priority, and insulated origin of this drama, is much 
corroborated. 

At this distance of time it is impossible to ascertain 
on what principle our author's friends, Heminge and 
Condell, admitted The First Part of ' King Henry VI. ' 
into their volume. Malone remarks, that they may 
have given it a place as a necessary introduction to 
the two other parts, and because Shakespeare had 
made some slight alterations, and written a few lines 
in it. 




JOAN OF ARC, THE DAUPHIN", ETC. 
First J>aj-t ofJCin.ff Jlenj-y W., £ctl, Sco-ui- fZ. 



KING HENRY VI.— PAET I. 121 

The events contained in this dramatic history com- 
mence with the funeral of Henry V. in 1422, and 
concluded with the earl of Suffolk being sent to France 
for Margaret of Anjou, at the close of 1443. The au- 
thor, however, has not been very precise as to the date 
and disposition of his facts, since Lord Talbot is killed 
at the end of the fourth act of this play, who did not 
really fall till July 13, 1453. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Sixth. 

Duke of G-loster, uncle to the king, and protector. 

Duke of Bedford, uncle to the king, and regent of 

France. 
Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, great uncle to 

the king. 
Henry Beaufort, great uncle to the king, bishop of 

Winchester, and afterwards cardinal. 
John Beaufort, earl of Somerset ; afterwards duke. 
Richard Plantagenet, eldest son of Richard, late 

earl of Cambridge ; afterwards duke of York. 
Earl of Warwick. Earl of Salisbury. Earl 

of Suffolk. 
Lord Talbot, afterwards earl of Shrewsbury. 
John Talbot, his son. 
Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. 
Mortimer's Keeper, and a Lawyer. 
Sir John Fastolfe. Sir William Lucy. 
Sir William Glansdale. Sir Thomas Gargrave. 



122 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Mayor of London. Woodville, lieutenant of the 

Tower. 
Vernon, of the white rose, or York faction. 
Basset, of the red rose, or Lancaster faction. 
Charles, Dauphin, and afterwards king of France. 
Reignier, duke of Aujou, and titular king of Naples. 
Duke of Burgundy. Duke of Alencon. 
Governor of Paris. Bastard of Orleans. 
Master Gunner of Orleans, and his Son. 
General of the French forces in Bourdeaux. 
A French Sergeant. A Porter. 
An old Shepherd, father to Joan la Pucelle. 

Margaret, daughter to Reignier ; afterwards mar- 
ried to King Henry. 
Countess of Auvergne. 
Joan la Pucelle, commonly called Joan of Arc. 

Fiends appearing to La Pucelle, Lords, Warders of 
the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers 
and several Attendants both on the English and 
French. 

Scene, partly in England, and partly in France. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The sceptre is no sooner transferred from the hands 
of the conqueror of France to the feeble grasp of his 
son, then an infant, than the favorable opportunity is 
seized by the French, who are enabled, by the courage 
and energy of a young woman named Joan of Arc, to 



KING HENEY VI— PAET I. 123 

recover their former possessions, and to swear alle- 
giance to their native monarch. In the meantime the 
violent feuds of the dukes of York and Somerset, 
whose parties are distinguished by white and red roses, 
lay the foundation of that civil war which was ere long 
to deluge the whole kingdom with blood. The brave 
Talbot and his son, together with a small band of 
faithful followers, are overpowered at Bourdeaux by 
the united forces of the enemy, and sacrificed to the 
private jealousy of these hostile nobles, who neglect to 
send him the necessary reinforcements. The intrepid 
Joan is at length taken prisoner by the duke of York, 
and cruelly condemned to the stake ; while King 
Henry is induced, by the artful suggestions of the earl 
of Suffolk, to solicit the hand of Margaret, daughter 
of the duke of Anjou : a treaty of alliance is speedily 
concluded with the father, and the earl despatched to 
accompany the princess to England. 

The earlier scenes of this drama are most artistically 
adapted to introduce the misrule and dark and bloody 
struggles of the turbulent reign of Henry. The iron- 
hand of the hero of Agincourt being laid in the grave, 
and the enthusiastic patriotism, which was warmed 
into active existence by his gorgeous and triumphant 
career, having subsided into the calm stream of com- 
mon life, the elements of discord break forth. The 
fierce contentions of Beaufort and Gloucester show the 
disordered state of the kingdom consequent upon the 
supremacy of a child, and are a natural prelude to the 
savage contests which afterwards took place under the 
name of the Wars of the Roses. 

Talbot is a boldly drawn character ; he resembles a 
grim armed giant, whose presence everywhere causes 
terror and flight, yet he is thoroughly English in his 



124 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

nature — that is, he possesses all those qualities which 
were prominent in the most just and patriotic warriors 
of his country in the fifteenth century. Terrible to 
his enemies, fierce and savage in war, he is yet mild 
and genial to his associates, while on his tenderness as 
a father the great interest of his character depends. 
The scene between him and the Countess of Auvergne 
is an admirable episode, full of life and vigor, and writ- 
ten by the pen of genius ; if, according to the con- 
jecture of Mr. Malone, either Greene or Peele was the 
author of this play, it is to be regretted that they have 
not left more such scenes for the admiration of pos- 
terity. The generosity of Talbot to the crafty but 
outwitted Frenchwoman is the result of a noble spirit ; 
a meaner general would probably have razed her 
castle to its foundations, or left it in flames, as a 
punishment for her perfidious abuse of the sacred laws 
of hospitality. 

The brave Talbot is at last sacrificed through the 
dissensions and treachery of York and Somerset : each 
blames the other for neglect, but stands aloof himself ; 
the intrepid general is surrounded without the walls 
of Bordeaux by forces immeasurably superior to his 
own, and, after performing prodigies of valor, is slain. 
Just before his death he has an interview with his son, 
whom after an absence of seven years he had sent for, 
to tutor in the strategies of war. The meeting is a 
melancholy one ; certain death awaits them both, 
unless avoided by flight — the elder Talbot, grown gray 
in peril and in honor, counsels his son to escape, but 
will himself remain to meet his fate ; the young hero 
will not stir from the side of his father, who eventually 
dies with the dead body of his son in his arms. 

In the scene in the Temple Garden, the great Earl 



KING HENRY VI.— PAET I. 125 

of Warwick is introduced — that Warwick whose after 
achievements gained for him the title of the ' King- 
maker,' and although he does not appear so promi- 
nently in this play, as in the two following ones, yet 
here we have the germs of his future character, and a 
very spirited and Shakespearian speech is uttered by 
him. Somerset and Plantagenet having disputed on 
some legal question, appeal to the earl, who at first 
declines to side with either party, exclaiming — 

Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch, 
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth, 
Between two blades, which bears the better temper, 
Between two horses, which doth bear him best, 
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye, 
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment: 
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, 
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. 

Something of the princely and chivalrous earl, whose 
hospitality was as royal and boundless as his wealth, 
and who kept so many retainers, that sometimes six 
oxen were eaten by them at a breakfast, is shadowed 
forth in this hearty and bounding speech. They who 
are conversant with the language of our poet will need 
no argument to induce them to believe that it was the 
work of his pen. In this scene we have detailed the 
supposed origin of the two badges, the white rose and 
the red, afterwards worn by the rival houses of York 
and Lancaster. 

The character of Joan la Pucelle, though it has not 
the finish of Shakespeare's later works, yet partakes 
of their strength. It is only to be regretted that he 
has attributed to satanic agency what was doubtless 
the result of pure patriotism and vivid religious 



126 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

enthusiasm ; but the era of the poet was one of intense 
and obstinate superstition, when to express a disbelief 
in witchcraft was frequently deemed an act of impiety, 
and it is not to be expected that in his youth he should 
be emancipated from the errors of his time. But this 
unjust picture has given Schlegel occasion to say that 
' the wonderful saviour of her country, Joan of Arc, is 
portrayed bj 7 Shakespeare with an Englishman's prej- 
udices.' History has since done justice to her 
memory, and time has found the solution of her sup- 
posed miraculous influence. The inhabitants of the 
little hamlet where she was born were remarkable for 
their simplicity and their superstition ; and the poor 
peasant girl, whom a pious education had ripened into 
a religious enthusiast, was led, while tending her flocks 
in solitude among the hills and pastures of a wild and 
picturesque country, to occupy herself with day-dreams 
concerning the ascetic and miraculous lives of the 
saints, and the wonderful heroism of the virgin mar- 
tyrs. This sort of life led to its natural result in a 
fervent and susceptible mind ; after a short time she 
was haunted by visions, and listened in ecstasy to the 
voices of spirits ; angelic faces appeared to her sur- 
rounded by a halo of light and glory ; amongst them 
were St. Catherine and St. Margaret, wearing crowns 
which glittered with celestial jewels, and these heavenly 
visitants spoke to her in voices which were sweeter 
than the softest music. They commanded her to 
deliver her country, and told her that she would be 
endowed with strength from heaven. The devoted 
enthusiast went to the king, declared her mission, 
liberated France, and was finally, with a cruelty at 
which humanity recoils, burnt at the stake for sorcery. 
It is to be wished that Shakespeare had taken a more 



KING HENRY VI.— PART I. 127 

lofty and generous view of her character. The family 
of this unhappy woman was ennobled by the monarch 
to whom she had rendered such important services, 
but he made no effort whatever to rescue from the 
hands of the English a heroine 'to whom the more 
generous superstition of the ancients would have 
erected altars.' 

Viewed historically, there are some slight apologies 
to be made for the conduct of York in attempting to 
supplant Henry on the throne ; but in the drama he 
stands convicted of complicated treachery and constant 
perjury. The feeble but generous king restores him to 
his rank and estates, which had been forfeited by the 
treason of his father, who was beheaded for a plot to 
assassinate Henry the Fifth. He promises eternal 
gratitude and allegiance, exclaiming — 

And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall ! 

And as my duty springs, so perish they 

That grudge one thought against your majesty ! 

Yet this very man, perceiving the imbecility of 
Henry, casts an evil eye unto the crown, and eventually 
he and his sons, after shedding the blood of nearly a 
hundred thousand Englishmen, exterminate the house 
of Lancaster, and place the sensual, perjured Edward 
upon the throne. 

In the early part of the play the young king does 
not appear, and when he does, it is only to make a 
miserable exhibition of his weakness and vacillation of 
mind ; for, although contracted to another lady, he 
falls in love with Margaret merely from Suffolk's 
description of her personal charms, and thus becomes 
the dupe of that cunning courtier, who loves her him- 
23 



128 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

self. The play ends abruptly with Henry's dispatching 
Suffolk to France to woo Margaret for him, and the 
wily emissary speeds on his mission rejoicing in the 
probable success of his treachery. 




I 

o fes 



KING HENRY VI.— PART TI. 129 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF ' KING HENRY 
VI.'— PART II. 



An old play in two parts, which appears to have 
been written about the year ] 590, and which is ascribed 
by Malone to the pen of Christopher Marlowe, assisted 
by his friends Poole and Greene, is the foundation of 
this and the ensuing drama ; the prototype of the 
present being called ' The First Part of the Contention 
of the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster.' 
These two parts were published in quarto, the first in 
1594, the second in the following year : both were re- 
printed in 1600, and seem to have been moulded by 
our author, with many alterations and additions, into 
the shape in which they at present appear. 

The action of this drama comprises ten years, com- 
mencing with Henry's marriage with Margaret of 
Anjou, in Maj% 1445 ; and terminating with the first 
battle of Saint Albans, in favor of the house of York, 
May 22, 1455. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Sixth. 
Humphrey, duke of Gloster, his uncle. 
Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, great 
uncle to the king. 



of the king's party. 



130 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Richard Plantagenet, duke of York. 

Edward and Richard, his sons. 

Duke op Somerset, 

Duke op Suffolk, 

Duke of Buckingham, 

Lord Clifford, 

Young Clifford, his son, 

Earl of Salisbury, j of ^ York faction 

Earl of Warwick, J 

Lord Scales, governor of the Tower. Lord Say. 

Sir Humphrey Stafford, and his brother. Sir 

John Stanley. 
A Sea Captain, Master and Master's Mate, and 

Walter Whitmore. 
Two Gentlemen, prisoners with Suffolk. 
A Herald. Vaux. 
Hume and Southwell, two priests. 
Bolingbroke, a conjurer. A Spirit raised by him. 
Thomas Horner, an armorer. Peter, bis man. 
Clerk of Chatham. Mayor of Saint Albans. 
Simpcox, an impostor. Two Murderers. 
Jack Cade, a rebel. 
George, John, Dick, Smith the weaver, Michael, 

etc., bis followers. 
Alexander Iden, a Kentish gentleman. 

Margaret, queen to King Henry. 

Eleanor, duchess of Cluster. 

Margery Jourdain, a witch. Wife to Simpcox. 

Lords, Ladies, and Attendants ; Petitioners, Alder- 
men, a Beadle, Sheriff, and Officers ; Citizens, Pren- 
tices, Falconers, Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, etc. 

Scene, dispersedly in various parts of England. 



KING HENRY VI.— PART II. 131 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The nuptials of King Henry VI. with Margaret of 
Anjou are scarcely celebrated, in the 24th year of the 
king, when the new queen resolves to exercise un- 
limited control over the councils of her imbecile hus- 
band, and with the assistance of a number of powerful 
nobles, to remove the duke of Gloster from his post 
of protector. Their purpose is at length effected, and 
the virtuous duke confined on a charge of high treason. 
His accusers, perceiving the evidence of his guilt in- 
sufficient to obtain the least credit, have recourse to 
assassination. The populace, driven to desperation at 
the murder of their patron, tumultuously insist on the 
immediate banishment of Suffolk, his avowed enemy, 
who, in his passage to France, is captured by pirates 
and beheaded. In the meantime the government of 
Ireland is intrusted to the duke of York, who previous 
to his departure induces a needy dependent, named 
Cade, to commence an insurrection in Kent, laying 
claim to the crown as a descendant of Edmund Morti- 
mer, in order that he may thereby be enabled to judge 
of the probability of his own success. Cade and his 
party are at length dispersed by the king's forces, and 
the duke of York soon after arrives in England to 
support his pretensions to the throne by force of arms. 
The hostile parties come to a general engagement near 
Saint Albans, where the Lancastrians sustain a total 
defeat, and the victorious duke resolves to commence 
his march to the capital without delay. 

In perusing this play we seem to be walking among 
covered pitfalls ; the snares of treachery are spread in 



132 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

all directions ; every noble is striving for supremacy, 
and each exclaiming on the ambition of the rest. The 
drama forms a dark and terrible picture of the wicked- 
ness of courts ; for sophistry, perjury and murder stain 
nearly every character except the weak king and the 
'good Duke Humphrey.' We recoil in disgust from 
this diabolical exhibition of state-craft : these wily 
courtiers play for the crown of the feeble Henry with 
all the recklessness of ruined gamblers ; they stake 
body and soul upon the cast, or rather play as if they 
had no souls to lose. The_poet, with all the ingenuity 
of youth, scourges .hypocrisy with unsparing vehe- 
mence, treachery is made transparent, and the great 
struggle for self rendered obvious and disgusting; he 
tears aside the disguises of patriotism and religion, j 
and shows us the human fiends concealed beneath them. 
The character of the king is very weak, and the 
feebleness of infancy had not given way to the strength 
and vigor of manhood ; and the son of that deter- 
mined prince, who was regarded by the people with 
affectionate awe, was a gentle, weak, superstitious 
man. As a village priest he would have proved a 
valuable member of society ; happy would it have 
been for him and England had he been born to such a 
station ; but as a king who had to govern a powerful 
and insolent nobility, and a semi-barbarous people, his 
very virtues were his chief defects. In those times a 
strong bad man, so that he had judgment enough not 
to stretch his prerogative too far, made a better sov- 
ereign than a weak good man. Where much power 
attaches to the crown, a feeble king is worse than no 
king, for the powers of government arc wielded by any 
hand that is bold enough to seize them and strong 
enough to guide them. Thus with Henry — Glouces- 



KING HENRY VI.— PART II. 133 

ter, Beaufort, Suffolk, Somerset, York, and Warwick, 
each in turn influence and coerce this phantom of a 
king. Tl)e mind of the unfortunate monarch was worse 
than feeble ; it was diseased. He was several times 
seized with an extraordinary apathy and imbecility, 
which rendered him unfit for the commonest duties 
of life, and unconscious of the presence or inquiries 
of his friends ; but Shakespeare has not alluded to 
this mental defect in his portraiture of the unhappy 
king. 

Margaret of Anjou was selected by the cardinal and 
his compeers for Henry as a wile calculated to rouse 
him into greater activity, and to impart to him some 
of the decision of character and strength of mind that 
she possessed. Added to great personal beauty and 
remarkable vivacity, she had a courageous temper and 
masculine intellect, and was regarded as the most ac- 
complished woman of her age. Her pride and vin- 
dictiveness of temper she had not yet revealed ; no 
royal state or adverse fortune had called them into 
activity ; the young beauty had lived in comparative 
seclusion, adding accomplishments to natural graces, 
and it was thought, with much probability, that when 
she shared the throne of Henry, she would increase 
its lustre and elevate the character of its occupant. 
Had her husband possessed a sounder judgment, and 
a royalty of nature, she would doubtless have fulfilled 
these hopes respecting her, but Margaret had no one 
whose influence could restrain in her those arbitrary 
doctrines which she had learnt in France and attempted 
to apply in England. She was distinguished by a 
haughtiness greater than had hitherto been assumed 
by any of their native kings, and she sank into unpopu- 
larity and dislike. 



134 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING HENRY 
VI.'— PART III. 



The second part of the old drama which supplied 
our author with materials for the present production 
is entitled ' The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of 
Yorke, and the Death of good King Henrie the Sist ; 
with the whole Contention between the two Houses 
Lancaster and Yorke ; as it was sundry times acted by 
the Right Honorable the Earle of Peuibrooke his ser- 
vants.' Both this and the preceding play were re- 
printed together in 1600, which Malone considers as a 
strong proof that they cannot be ascribed to the author 
of the first part of this sovereign's history. 

The present historical drama was altered by Crowne, 
and brought on the stage in the year 1G80, under the 
title of "The Miseries of Civil War.' The works of 
Shakespeare could have been little read at that period ; 
for the author, in his prologue, declares the play to be 
entirely his own composition ; whereas the very first 
scene is that of Jack Cade, copied almost verbatim 
from the 'Second Part of King Henry VI.' and several 
others from his Third Part with as little variation. 

The action of this play comprehends a period of 
sixteen years. It commences with the events imme- 
diately succeeding the first battle of Saint Albans in 
1455, and concludes with the murder of King Henry 
VI. and the birth of Prince Edward, afterwards Ed- 
ward V., in 1471. 

'Of these three plays,' says Dr. Johnson, 'I think 




M. AD-A^fO , F12 



.WARWICK AND KING EDWARD. 
T/< ird Fart of King Hen ru 11. , 9ct IV.. Scone HI. 



KING HENRY VI.— PART III. 



135 



the second the best.' The truth is, that they have not 
sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too 
often of the same kind ; yet many of the characters 
are well discriminated. King Henry and his queen, 
King Edward, the duke of Gloster, and the earl of 
Warwick are very strongly and distinctly painted. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



lords on King Henry's 
side. 



King Henry the Sixth. 

Edward, prince of Wales, his son. 

Lewis XL , king of France. 

Duke op Somerset, 

Duke op Exeter, 

Earl op Oxford, 

Earl op Northumberland, 

Earl op Westmoreland, 

Lord Clifford, 

Richard Plantagenet, duke of York. 

Edward, earl of March, afterwards King " 

Edward IV., 
Edmund, earl of Rutland, 
George, afterwards duke of Clarence, 
Richard, afterwards duke of Gloster, 
Duke of Norfolk, 
Marquis op Montague, 
Earl op Warwick, 
Earl of Pembroke, 
Lord Hastings, 
Lord Stafford, 



his sons. 



of the duke of York's 
party. 



136 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Sir John Mortimer, i 

Sir Hugh Mortimer, j uncles to the duke of YorL 

Henry, earl of Richmond, a youth. 

Lord Rivers, brother to lady Grey. Sir William 
Stanley. Sir John Montgomery. Sir John 
Somerville. Tutor to Rutland. Mayor oe 
York. Lieutenant of the Tower. A Noble- 
man. Two Keepers. A Huntsman. A Son 
that has killed his father. A Father that has 
killed his son. 

Queen Margaret. 

Lady Grey, afterwards queen to Edward IV. 

Bona, sister to the French queen. 

Soldiers and other Attendants on King Henry and 
King Edward, Messengers, Watchmen, etc. 

Scene, during part of the third act, in France ; during 
all the rest of the play, in England. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The duke of York enters London in triumph, and 
extorts from the imbecile Henry a recognition of his 
succession to the throne in return for an undisturbed 
possession of his regal dignity during life. The con- 
flicting interests of each party soon lead to an infraction 
of this treaty : Richard is defeated and taken prisoner 
in a battle near Wakefield in Yorkshire, and soon after 
put to death ; while the infant duke of Rutland, his 
son, is barbarously murdered in cold blood by Lord 



KING HENRY VI.— PART III. 137 

Clifford. The powerful assistance of the earl of War- 
wick enables the depressed Yorkists in their turn to 
defeat their opponents at Towton in Yorkshire, and 
place Edward duke of York on the throne. King 
Henry escapes to Scotland, but is at length committed 
to the Tower, while his queen and son repair to Paris 
to implore the aid of the French king, whose sympathy 
is weakened by the presence of Warwick, who is com- 
missioned by his master to solicit the hand of the 
princess Bona, the sister of Lewis ; when a messenger 
from England suddenly arrives with the intelligence 
of Edward's marriage with Lady Elizabeth Grey. 
Exasperated at this insult, Warwick forms a treaty of 
alliance with Margaret and Lewis, and speedily de- 
thrones his sovereign, who effects his escape to Bur- 
gundy, where he obtains a supply of troops, and soon 
after lands at Ravensburg : a great number of his 
adherents flock to his standard, and Warwick is routed 
and slain in a general engagement near Barnet. A still 
more decisive action at Tewkesbury destroys the 
relics of the Lancastrian forces : the prince of Wales 
is stabbed to the heart by the three royal brothers in 
the presence of his mother ; while the captive monarch 
is himself assassinated in the Tower by Richard, duke 
of Gloster. 



13S COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING 
RICHARD III.' 



Shakespeare's historical authorities in the com- 
position of tins popular drama were the ' History of 
Richard the Third' by Sir Thomas More, and its con- 
tinuation in the 'Chronicles of Holinshed.' The date 
of 1593 is the period assigned by Malone to its pro- 
duction, which however was not entered at Stationers' 
Hall till 1597. 

The reign of Richard III. appears to have been a 
favorite subject of dramatists and other poets who 
preceded our author ; but no sufficient evidence has 
been produced that Shakespeare borrowed from any 
of them. Mr. Boswell indeed supposed that an old 
play, published in 1594, 'An Enterlude, intitled the 
Tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is showne the 
deathe of Edward the Fourthe, with the sniotheringe 
of the two princes in the Tower, with the lamentable 
ende of Shore's wife, and the contention of the two 
houses of Lancaster and Yorke,' — had so great a re- 
semblance to this play, that the author must have seen 
it before he composed his own. It is, notwithstanding, 
one of the worst of the ancient dramas, and bears but 
few traces of general likeness. 

The historical events here recorded occupy a space 
of about fourteen years, but are frequently confused 
for the purposes of dramatic representation. The 
second scene of the first act commences with the fu- 




a ^ 
S * 



pj S 



KING RICHARD III. 139 

neral of King Henry VI. , who is said to have been 
murdered on the 21st of May, 1471, while the im- 
prisonment of Clarence, which is represented previ- 
ously in the first scene, did not take place till 1477-8. 
In speaking of this play, Dr. Johnson remarks : 
'This is one of the most celebrated of our author's 
performances, yet I know not whether it has not hap- 
pened to him as to others, to be praised most when 
praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes 
noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike 
on the exhibition, cannot be denied ; but some parts 
are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Edward the Fourth. 
Edward, prince of Wales, afterwards - ) 

xr- t?j j 17- I sons t0 tne 

King Edward v., > ,. 

Richard, duke of York, J s " 

George, duke of Clarence, "j , 

Richard, duke of Gloster, afterwards >-,,.. 

King Richard III., J the klng " 

A young Son of Clarence. 
Henry, earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry 

VII. 
Cardinal Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury. 
Thomas Rotheram, archbishop of York. 
John Morton, bishop of Ely 
Duke op Buckingham. 
Duke of Norfolk. Earl of Surrey, his son. 



140 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Earl Rivers, brother to King Edward's queen. 
Marquis of Dorset and Lord Grey, her sons. 
Earl op Oxford. Lord Hastings. Lord Stan- 
ley. Lord Lovel. 
Sir Thomas Vaughn. Sir Richard Ratcliff. 
Sir William Catesby. Sir James Tyrrel. 
Sir James Blount. Sir Walter Herbert. 
Sir Robert Brakenbury, lieutenant of the Tower. 
Christopher Urswick, a Priest. Another Priest. 
Lord Mayor of London. Sheriff of Wiltshire. 

Elizabeth, queen of King Edward IV. 

Margaret, widow of King Henry VI. 

Duchess of York, mother to King Edward IV. 

Clarence and Gloster. 
Lady Anne, widow of Edward, prince of Wales, son 

to King Henry VI. ; afterwards married to the 

duke of Gloster. 
A young Daughter of Clarence. 

Lords, and other Attendants ; two Gentlemen ; a Pur- 
suivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messen- 
gers, Ghosts, Soldiers, etc. 

Scene, England. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The extinction of the house of Lancaster and the 
declining health of the king induce Richard, duke of 
Gloster, to commence his career of ambition with the 



KING KICHAED III. 141 

removal of the duke of Clarence, who is privately 
assassinated in prison by his orders. Edward shortly 
after expires, leaving Richard protector of the realm, 
who immediately withdraws the two young princes 
from the superintendence of their maternal relatives : 
these unfortunate noblemen are executed on a pre- 
tended discovery of treason ; a similar fate awaits Lord 
Hastings for his fidelity to the legitimate successor of 
his deceased master ; while the innocent children are 
conveyed to the Tower. By the powerful assistance of 
the duke of Buckingham, Richard obtains the crown, 
which is followed by the murder of his nephews in the 
Tower, and the poisoning of his wife, in order to facili- 
tate an alliance with his niece, which he hopes to 
accomplish by the aid of her mother. These events 
are succeeded by the defection and execution of the 
duke of Buckingham. In the meantime, Henry, earl 
of Richmond, having assembled a large army, embarks 
at Bretagne, and lands at Milford Haven : he resolves 
to proceed towards the capital without delay, and 
reaches the town of Bosworth in Leicestershire, where 
he is encountered by the forces of the usurper, who is 
defeated and slain ; while the regal dignity devolves 
on his fortunate rival, who assumes the title of Henry 
VII. and puts a period to the long contention between 
the rival families by an immediate union with Eliza- 
beth, the daughter of Edward IV. 

The part of Richard is, perhaps beyond all others, 
variegated, and consequently favorable to a judicious 
performer. It comprehends, indeed, a trait of almost 
every character on the stage : the hero, the lover, the 
statesman, the bufibon, the hypocrite, the hardened 
and repenting sinner, etc., are to be found within its 
compass. No wonder, therefore, that the discriminat- 



142 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

ing powers of a Burbage, a Garrick and a Hender- 
son, Booth, Cook, Kean, Phelps and Irving should 
at different periods have given it a popularity beyond 
other dramas of the same author. 




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KING HENRY VIII. 143 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'KING 
HENRY VIII. ' 



This drama is conjectured by Malone to have been 
written a short time previous to the death of Queen 
Elizabeth, which happened March 24, 1602-3, as well 
from the prophetic eulogium on that princess in the 
last scene, as from the imperfect manner in which the 
panegyric on her successor is connected with the fore- 
going and subsequent lines. After having been laid 
aside for several years, it is said to have been revived 
at the Globe Theatre, June 29, 1613, under the title 
of 'All is True,' with new decorations, and a prologue 
and epilogue. During this representation, the theatre 
accidentally caught fire, occasioned by the discharge 
of some small pieces, called chambers, on King Henry's 
arrival at Cardinal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of 
which being injudiciously managed, set fire to the 
thatched roof of the building, which was entirely con- 
sumed. 

Unlike the other English historical plays of Shake- 
speare, ' Henry the Eighth ' had no predecessors on the 
stage. The pages of history alone furnish materials 
for its composition ; and there are few passages 
throughout the play which cannot be traced to Fox's 
'Acts and Monuments of Christian Martyrs,' or to 
Cavendish's ' Life of Wolsey,' as found in the ' Chroni- 
cles of Holinshed.' The action comprises a period of 
twelve years, commencing in 1521, the twelfth year of 
24 



144 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

King Henry's reign, and ending with the baptism of 
Elizabeth in 1533. It should be observed, however, 
that Queen Katharine did not die until January 8, 
1536. 

'This play,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is one of those 
which still keep possession of the stage by the splendor 
of its pageantry : yet pomp is not its only merit. The 
meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Katharine have 
furnished some scenes which may be justly numbered 
among the greatest efforts of tragedy : but the genius 
of Shakespeare comes in and goes out with Katharine. 
Every other part may be easily conceived and easily 
written. ' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King Henry the Eighth. 

Cardinal Wolsey. Cardinal Campeius. 

Capucius, ambassador from the emperor, Charles V. 

Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. 

Duke op Norfolk. Duke op Buckingham. 

Duke op Suffolk. Earl of Surrey. 

Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chancellor. 

Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. 

Bishop of Lincoln. Lord Abergavenny. Lord 

Sands. 
Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell. 
Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux. 
Secretaries to Wolsey. 
Cromwell, servant to Wolsey. 
Griffith, gentleman usher to Queen Katharine. 



KING HENKY VIII. 145 

Three other Gentlemen. 

Doctor Butts, physician to the king. 

Garter, king at arms. 

Surveyor to the duke of Buckingham. 

Brandon, and a Sergeant at arms. 

Doorkeeper of the council chamber. Porter, and 

his Man. 
Page to Gardiner. A Crier. 

Queen Katharine, wife to King Henry : afterwards 

divorced. 
Anne Bullen, her maid of honor ; afterwards queen. 
An old Lady, friend to Anne Bullen. 
Patience, woman to Queen Katharine. 

Several Lords and Ladies in the dumb shows ; Women 
attending upon the queen ; Spirits, which appear 
to her; Scribes, Officers, Guards and other At- 
tendants. 

Scene, chiefly in London and Westminster ; once, at 
Kimbolton. 



COMPENDIUM OP THE PLAY. 



The duke of Buckingham imprudently involves 
himself in personal hostilities with Cardinal Wolsey, 
who finds means of seducing the confidential servants 
of his rival, and convicting him of high treason. The 
king shortly after becomes violently enamored of a 
young lady named Anne Bullen, the power of whose 
attractions contributes to increase the conscientioua 



146 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

scruples which he had previously entertained of the 
legality of his marriage with Queen Katharine, the 
widow of his deceased brother. The cardinal, appre- 
hensive of his master's union with one who is suspected 
to favor the principles of the Reformation, sends 
private instructions to the papal court, to whose de- 
cision Queen Katharine had appealed, that the sentence 
of divorce may be delayed. This letter, together with 
an inventory of his enormous wealth, falls by mistake 
into the hands of the enraged monarch, who im- 
mediately depiives Wolsey of all his civil offices ; and 
the fallen favorite is only saved from a charge of high 
treason by the timely interposition of death. The new 
queen is now crowned with great magnificence, while 
her amiable predecessor dies of a broken heart. In 
the meantime a conspiracy is formed against Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, who is enabled to triumph over the 
malice of his powerful enemies by the favor of the 
king. The play concludes with the baptism of the 
infant Elizabeth, the glories of whose future reign, 
and those of her successor, are prophetically foretold 
by Cranmer, who is appointed by Henry as sponsor to 
the princess. 




^7-x-r ■'- 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. 
-Set ///. Scene //. 



TEOILUS AND CEESSIDA. 147 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'TROILUS AND 
CRESSIDA.' 



The composition of this play is attributed by Malone 
to the date of 1602. That it was written and acted 
before the decease of Queen Elizabeth is evident from 
the manner in which it is entered or. the Stationers' 
books; being registered on February 7, 1602-3, 'as 
acted by my lord chamberlein's men,' who, in the vear 
of the accession of King James, obtained a license for 
their theatre, and were denominated 'his majesty's 
servants. ' 

Chaucer had celebrated the loves of Troilus and 
Cressida in a translation from a Latin poem of one 
Lollius, an old Lombard author : but Shakespeare is 
supposed to have received the greatest part of his 
materials for the structure of this drama from Guido 
of Columpna, a native of Messina in Sicily, who 
wrote his ' History of Troy' in Latin. This work appears 
to have been soon after translated by Raoul le Fevre 
into French, from whom Caxton rendered it into Eng- 
lish in 1471, under the title of ' Recuyles, or Destruction 
of Troy. ' Our author has in his story followed, for the 
greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then 
very popular ; but the character of Thersites, of which 
it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was 
written after Chapman had published his version of 
Homer in 1596. 



14S COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



his sons. 



Priam, king of Troy. 

Hector, 

Troilus, 

Paris, 

Deiphobus, 

Helenus, 

JEneas, i 

Antenor, I Tr °J an commanders. 

Calchas, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks. 

Pandarus, uncle to Cressida. 

Margarelon, a bastard son of Priam. 

Agamemnon, the Grecian general. 
Menelatjs, his brother. 
Achilles, 
Ajax, 
Ulysses, 
Nestor, 
Diomedes, 
Patroclus, 
Thersites, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian. 
Alexander, servant to Cressida. 
Servant to Troilus ; Servant to Paris ; Servant to Di- 
omedes. 

Helen, wife to Menelaus. 
Andromache, wife to Hector. 
Cassandra, daughter to Priam ; a prophetess. 
Cressida, daughter to Calchas. 

Trojan and Greek Soldiers and Attendants. 
Scene, Troy, and the Grecian camp before it. 



Grecian commanders. 



TEOILUS AND CKESSIDA. 149 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Calchas, a Trojan priest of Apollo, deserts the 
cause of his country, and traitorously joins the camp 
of the Grecians, to whom he renders most important 
services, in recompense of which he intercedes for the 
ransom of a powerful Trojan captive named Antenor, 
in exchange for his daughter Cressida, who resides in 
Troy, under the protection of her uncle Pandarus, where 
her beauty and accomplishments make a deep impres- 
sion on prince Troilus, the sou of king Priam, whose ad- 
dresses she is induced to accept, when their felicity is 
suspended by the arrival of Diomed, .who is commis- 
sioned to effect the exchange and restore Cressida to 
her father. Vows of mutual fidelity are interchanged 
by the separated lovers, and Troilus soon finds an op- 
portunity to repair secretly to the Grecian tents, where 
he has the mortification of witnessing the inconstancy 
of his mistress, who has transferred her affections to 
Diomed. In the meantime, Hector, disregarding the 
predictions of his sister Cassandra, and the entreaties 
of his wife Andromache, repairs to the field of battle, 
where he slays Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, who 
soon after revenges his death on his conqueror, whose 
dead body he cruelly attaches to his chariot, which he 
drives round the walls of the city. 

The destruction of Troy would have been a theme 
worthy of the pen of Shakespeare, had he confined 
his overflowing and sometimes erratic genius to his 
subject ; he had admirable materials in his hand, had 
he attempted less. The play abounds with characters, 
but they are introduced and then abandoned : before 



150 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

we are fairly acquainted with them they vanish. Cres- 
sida is little more than a sketch, and Cassandra, the 
mad prophetess, something less than one. The best 
developed character is Pandarus, and he is altogether 
contemptible. Thersites is probably the original of 
Apeinantus ; there is, at least, a resemblance between 
them, but the latter is the most finished character. 
Shakespeare apparently intended to create a sympathy 
and admiration for Troilus, for he makes 'that same 
dog-fox, Ulysses,' speak eloquently in his favor, com- 
paring him with Hector, and declaring that he was — 

' Not yet mature, yet matchless ; firm of word ; 
Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue; 
Not soon provoked, nor, heing provoked, soon calmed ; 
His heart and hand both open and both free.' 

Still, a mere lover is generally an insipid creation, and 
Troilus is scarcely an exception to the rule ; he wants 
purpose, decision, and moral courage. The conduct 
of Pandarus is mean and officious enough, but Troilus 
shares his shame by employing him. Oessida was 
open to be wooed, and easy to be won ; she is sufficiently 
complying, in all conscience, and onty retires when 
she is feebly pursued. Had Troilus won her in an 
open, manly manner, he would probably have pre- 
served both her affection and her honor. Fanciful, 
giddy coquette as she is, she would have remained 
virtuous, had she not encountered temptation. 

But the play is full of fine poetry and profound ob- 
servations ; if we are for a moment angry with Shake- 
speare for his wanderings or his inconsistency, he soon 
wins us back to him with bribes of thought and 
beauty. The play also has many fine scenes ; for in- 
stance, that between Oessida and her uncle, in the 



TEOILUS AND CKESSIDA. 151 



first act, is remarkable for sparkling dialogue; the 
same may be said of the first scene of the second act, 
between the savage jester Thersites and the blunt 
Ajax. The short scene in the third act, where Helen 
is introduced, is exceedingly natural and lively; the 
equivocations of the servant whom Pandarus addresses 
are fully as humorous as the sayings of the licensed 
fools in other of our poet's plays. The scene in the 
garden of Pandarus, where the lovers meet and con- 
fess their affection, is exceedingly beautiful ; we are 
reminded for a moment of a similar scene in ' Romeo 
and Juliet,' but the resemblance soon ceases — the pas- 
sionate though chaste and womanly affection of Juliet, 
compared to the wanton appetite of Cressida, is as a 
pure bright star in heaven fo the cold delusive fire 
which dances in darkness over the stagnant pool or 
trackless marsh. The dialogue between Achilles and 
Hector after the tournament is in Shakespeare's hap- 
piest style. The bulky Achilles, scanning the Trojan 
prince with his eyes, and soliciting the gods to tell him 
in what part of his body he should destroy great Hec- 
tor, is the sublime of chivalry. Hector's passionate 

rejoinder, 

'Henceforth, guard thee well; 

For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there; 

But, by the forge that stithed Mars his helm, 

I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er,' 

is equally fine ; while the whole of the fifth act is 
full of vigor and bustle, and exceedingly animated. 



152 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'TIMON OF 
ATHENS.' 



No pi-inted edition anterior to the folio of 1623 has 
yet been discovered of this tragedy, which abounds 
with perplexed, obscure and corrupt passages. The 
year 1610 is conjectured by Malone as the most prob- 
able date of its production, while Dr. Drake and Mr. 
Chalmers suppose it to have been written as early as 
1601 or 1602. 

Shakespeare is thought to have derived some of his 
materials for this drama from the perusal of a novel in 
Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and from a very slight 
notice of Timon in Plutarch's 'Life of Antony,' trans- 
lated by Sir Thomas North. The late celebrated 
engraver, Mr. Strutt, had, however, a manuscript play 
on this subject, which appeared to have been written 
or transcribed about the year 1600, in which was a 
scene resembling Timon' s feast in the third act of this 
drama ; though, instead of warm water, the guests are 
served with stones painted like artichokes, with which 
they are driven out of the room : which incident our 
author is supposed to have had in mind when he made 
his fourth lord say, 

' One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.' 

In the old play Timon then retires to the woods, 
attended by his faithful steward Laches, who disguises 
himself that he may continue his services to his master ; 



TIMON OF ATHENS. 163 

and in the last act the recluse is followed by his incon- 
stant mistress, Calliniela, and others, who had heard 
that he had discovered a treasure in digging ; features 
likewise adopted in the present tragedy, in which, 
however, all these hints have been incomparably im- 
proved and expanded ; the original being a very in- 
ferior production, though, from the Greek frequently 
introduced, apparently the work of a scholar. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Timon, a noble Athenian. 
Lucius, ] 

Lucullus, >- lords, and flatterers of Timon. 
Sempronius, ) 

Ventidjus, one of Timon' s false friends. 
Apemantus, a churlish philosopher. 
Alcibiades, an Athenian general. 
Flavius, steward to Timon. 
Flaminius, 

Lucilius, \- Timon' s servants. 
Servilius, 
Caphis, 
Philotus, 
Titus, 
Lucius, 
Hortensius, j 
Two servants of Varro, and the servant of Isi- 
dore ; .two of Timon's creditors. 
Cupid and Maskers. Three Strangers. 



servants to Timon's creditors. 



154 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Poet, Painter, Jeweller and Merchant. 
Old Athenian. Page. Fool. 

Phrynia, ) . , ., . i 

TniANDRA 1 mistresses to Alcibiades. 

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Thieves and 
Attendants. 

Scene, Athens and the woods adjoining. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



An opulent citizen of Athens, named Timon, ex- 
pends the whole of his possessions in the service of his 
country and pretended friends, who enrich themselves 
by encouraging the indiscriminate profusion of their 
patron. The approach of poverty and the desertion 
of his flatterers at length open the eyes of the deluded 
Timon ; and he resolves to express his sense of their 
ingratitude at a repast, where nothing is provided but 
hot water, with which he besprinkles his affrighted 
guests. He now abjures all human intercourse, and 
seeks an asylum in the woods, where he subsists on the 
roots of the earth, in digging for which he discovers a 
large treasure in gold. This acquisition enables him 
to reward the fidelity of his steward Flavius, who 
adheres to the broken fortunes of his master ; while a 
considerable sum is appropriated to the service of 
Alcibiades, who was at that period laying siege to 
Athens, with the intention of chastising the arrogance 
of the senate, which had ungratefully repaid his past 



TIMON OF ATHENS. 155 



services by a sentence of perpetual exile. The unfor- 
tunate misanthrope is soon after discovered in his cave 
dead, and the Athenians surrender their city, after 
procuring favorable terms from their appeased con- 
queror. 

The tragedy includes two incidents, each arising 
from a similar cause, the flight of Timon and the 
banishment of Alcibiades ; let us now turn our atten- 
tion to the latter. Shakespeare also found his life in 
Plutarch, but the poet has not very fully elaborated 
the character of the Athenian general. Alcibiades 
was famous for his great personal beauty, his stubborn 
and ambitious temper, his eloquence, craftiness and 
dissipation. His resolution was strongly shown even 
in his boyhood ; for it is related that on one occasion 
he was playing at dice with some other boys in the 
street, when a loaded wagon coming up interrupted 
the game ; Alcibiades called to the driver to stop, as 
it was his turn to throw, but the man disregarded him 
and drove on ; while the other boys got out of the 
way, Alcibiades, however, was not to be so readily 
overcome, for throwing himself flat upon his face 
directly before the wagon, he told the rustic to drive 
on if he pleased. Upon this the man was so startled 
that he instantly stopped his horses, and the resolute 
boy got up and had his throw with the dice. Brought 
up in luxury and universally courted he gave way to 
every dissipation, but was still exceedingly attached to 
the philosopher Socrates. 

Shakespeare does not adhere to history respecting the 
cause of the banishment of Alcibiades. He was 
accused of sacrilege towards the goddesses Ceres and 
Proserpine and condemned to death, but he saved 
himself by taking refuge among the Spartans ; to 



156 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

whose hospitality he made a vile return by seducing 
the wife of their king Agis. After a life spent in 
dissipation, war and political intrigue, he was at length 
assassinated by a secret order of the magistrates of 
Sparta. He was at that time living in a small village 
in Phrygia with his mistress Titnandra. His murderers 
surrounded the house at night and set it on fire, and 
on his issuing out, sword in hand, they fled to a dis- 
tance and slew him with their darts and arrows. He 
was buried by Timandra as honorably as her circum- 
stances would permit. 




MR.VANDENHOFF AS CORIOLANUS. 
CoriolewutrSr Act H, Scen& 7/f. 



CORIOLANUS. 157 



HISTOKICAL SUMMARY OF ' CORIOLANUS. 



This play was neither entered in the books of the 
Stationers' Company, nor printed, till the year 1623, 
when it appeared in the folio edition of Heminge and 
Condell. From a slight resemblance between the lan- 
guage of the fable told by Menenius in the first scene, 
and that of the same apologue in ' Camden's Remains,' 
published in 1605, Malone supposes the passage to 
have been imitated from that volume. He assigns the 
production, however, to 1609 or 1610 ; partly because 
most of the other plays of Shakespeare have been 
reasonably referred to other years, and therefore the 
present might be most naturally ascribed to a time 
when he had not ceased to write, and was probably 
unemployed ; and partly from the mention of the 
mulberry by Volumnia, the white species of which 
fruit was brought into England in great quantities in 
1609, though possibly other sorts had been already 
planted here. 

A rigid adherence to historical truth is preserved in 
the characters and events of this drama. Many of 
the principal speeches are copied from Plutarch's ' Life 
of Coriolanus,' as translated by Sir Thomas North. 
The time of action comprehends a period of about 
four years, commencing with the secession to the 
Mons Sacer in the year of Rome 262, and ending with 
the death of Coriolanus, A. U. C. 266. 



158 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Caius Marcius Coriolanus, a noble Roman. 

Titus Lartius, ) , . , , r , . 

p, Y generals against the Volscians. 

Menenius Agrippa, friend to Coriolanus. 
Sicinius Velutus, ) .. „ . , 

Junius Brutus, j tnbunes of the P eopk 
Young Marcius, son to Coriolanus. 
Roman Herald. 

Tullus Aufidius, general of the Volscians. 
Lieutenant to Aufidius. 
Conspirators with Aufidius. 
Citizen of Antium. 
Two Volscian Guards. 

Volumnia, mother to Coriolanus. 
Virgilia, wife to Coriolanus. 
Valeria, friend to Virgilia. 
Gentlewoman, attending Virgilia. 

Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Ediles, 
Lictors, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to 
Aufidius, and other Attendants. 

Scene, partly in Rome, and partly in the territories 
of the Volscians and Antiates. 



CORIOLANUS. 159 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome is suc- 
ceeded by a famine, during which the plebeians extort 
from the weakness of the nobility a gratuitous distri- 
bution of corn, together with the appointment of two 
popular officers called tribunes to protect their inter- 
ests from the alleged oppression of the patricians. 
The haughty Coriolanus, by his opposition to these 
concessions, renders himself highly unpopular : his 
civil defects are, however, soon after effaced by the 
splendor of his military achievements, which are 
rewarded by his appointment to the consulate by the 
senate, whose choice is about to be ratified by the suf- 
frages of the people, when the powerful influence of 
the two tribunes procures his rejection. The violence 
of temper displayed by Coriolanus at this disappoint- 
ment affords matter of triumph to his crafty adver- 
saries, who condemn him to perpetual banishment by 
a decree of the people. Exasperated at this insult, 
the illustrious exile repairs to the capital of the Vol- 
scians, who gladly aid him in his schemes of revenge 
by investing him and their own general Anfidius with 
a joint command, which speedily overcomes all oppo- 
sition ; and the hostile occupation of Rome is expected 
with terror by its affrighted citizens. The conqueror, 
in the meantime, refuses to listen to the most solemn 
embassies of his countrymen, until his mother and 
wife, accompanied by a deputation of eminent Roman 
matrons, at length prevail on him to raise the siege. 
The Volscian army soon after returns home, where 
Coriolanus, while justifying his conduct to the senate, 
25 



160 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

is assassinated by a band of conspirators in the interest 
of bis colleague Aufidius. 

Coleridge says : ' This play illustrates the wonder- 
fully philosophic impartiality of Shakespeare's poli- 
tics.' The poet, however, shows himself something 
of an aristocrat. He seems to entertain a contempt 
for the common order of people, and places them in a 
very ridiculous light. The citizens are made mere 
creatures of fear and contradiction, wafted about by 
every wind, and won by every suppliant. More stress 
is laid on the folly of the plebeii than en the vices 
of the patricians; and if history has recorded the 
former as fickle, it has not left the latter stainless. 
Their courage and self-denial sometimes made them 
regarded as demi-gods, but their vices sunk them be- 
low the brutes. The Roman satirists give pictures 
of life in the great city which fill modern readers with 
disgust and loathing. Shakespeare laughs at the 
people ; but if he intended Coriolanus to represent 
the principle of aristocracy, he places that in no very 
attractive light. 

Some apologists for the turbulent character of Corio- 
lanus have been found who urge the prejudices he had 
derived from birth and education ; from the fact that 
he was a spoiled child of fortune ; and because that, 
in his day, there were no connecting links between the 
higher and lower classes, by which they might be- 
come known to and respect each other ; but these ex- 
cuses fall very short of a reasonable defence of his 
haughtiness. 

Volumnia, also, has been much praised as a noble 
character ; but she possesses too much of the pride 
and arrogance of her son, though his nature is cer- 
tainly softened in her : she is an Amazonian scold, 



CORIOLANUS. 161 



that holds the lives of the Roman citizens in less esti- 
mation than a mere whim of her son's ; when they 
have irritated him, she wishes that they may all hang 
and burn too. She has more experience and wisdom 
than he ; and though she despises and hates the 
people as much, she truly vaunts she has a brain 
'that leads her use of anger to better advantage.' 
The softer character of Virgilia shows pale beside her, 
but it is far more pleasing ; the sound of flutes is 
sweeter than the clang of trumpets, and the tender 
solicitude of the wife more interesting than the stately 
ambition of the mother. 

Menenius is something between a patrician and a 
buffoon ; his connexions are aristocratic, but his sym- 
pathies are with the people. Out of his love for Co- 
riolanus he becomes his parasite, and is, in the end, 
treated by that proud and selfish man with insolence 
and ingratitude. His application of the fable of the 
belly and its members to the mutiny of the citizens is 
apt enough : but we see that, after all, he loves the 
poor rogues whom he traduces. His great objects 
of abuse are the tribunes ; but they show far more 
sense than he : they were chosen guardians of the 
liberty of the people, and in opposing Coriolanus in 
his attempt at arbitrary power they but performed 
their duty. To have done less would have proved 
them unworthy of their great trust. 



162 COMPKNOTUM OF TITE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'JULIUS 
CiESAR.' 



The adventures of Julius Caesar and Ids untimely 
death had occupied the pens of several of our early 
dramatic authors previous to the composition el' tins 
tragedy, which is conjectured by Malone to have made 
its appearance in 1607; about 'which period, William 
Alexander, afterwards earl of Sterline, published a 
tragedy on the same subject, in which the assassination 
of Caesar, which is not exhibited, but related to the 
audience, forms the catastrophe of his pieee. To none 
of these sources, however, so far as we are acquainted 
with them, doos Shakespeare appear to have been at 
all indebted ; whilst every scene oi' his play proclaims 
his obligations to Plutarch's Lives, then recently 
translated by Sir Thomas North. This drama was 
neither entered at Stationers' Hall, nor printed before 
1623; but a memorandum in the papers of the late 
Mr. George Vertue states that a play, called 'Caesar's 
Tragedy,' was aeted at court before April 1(1, 1613, 
which is supposed to have been the present piece ; it 
being a frequent practice at that time to alter the name 
of our author's plays. 

The events contained in this drama commence with 
the festival of the Lupercalia, in February, A. U. C. 
709, and concludes with the defeat o\' Brutus and CaS- 
sius, about the end of October, A. U. C. 711. 




PHOTOGRAPH BY M9 MICHAEL, 



ROBERT DOWNING AS MARC ANTONY. 
JuM.it.-~ Caesar, Act III, Scewe-JI. 



JULIUS C^SAK. 16a 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Julius Caesar. 

OCTAVIUS C^SAR, ") • « ., ., ., .. 

M * „mr B A wnMTTT* C tnumvires after the death of 



' \ Julius Caesar. 



conspirators against Julius 
Caesar. 



Marcus Antonius, 

M. JEmil. Lepidus, 

Cicero, Publius, Popilius Lena, senators. 

Marcus Brutus, 

Cassius, 

Casca, 

Trebonius, 

LlGARIUS, 

Decius Brutus, 
Metellus Cimber, 

ClNNA, 

Flavius and Marullus, tribunes. 

Artemidorus, a sophist of Cnidos. 

A Soothsayer. 

Cinna, a poet. Another Poet. 

Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, Young Cato and 

Volumnius, friends to Brutus and Cassius. 
Varro, Clitus, Claudius, Strato, Lucius, Dar- 

danius, servants to Brutus. 
Pindarus, servant to Cassius. 

Calphurnia, wife to Caesar. 
Portia, wife to Brutus. 

Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, etc. 

Scene, during a great part of the play, at Rome ; 
afterwards at Sardis ; and near Philippi. 



164 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The defeat of the two sons of Pornpey in Spain 
having extinguished all opposition, Cassar returns in 
triumph to the city, in order to prepare for his Parthian 
expedition, previous to which he is anxious to assume 
the crown, which is publicly presented to him by Mark 
Antony at the festival of the Lupercalia. Alarmed 
at this prospect of regal usurpation, a band of con- 
spirators, with Brutus and Cassius at their head, 
resolve to emancipate their country from tyranny ; and 
the conqueror is accordingly assassinated in the senate- 
house. The humane though mistaken policy of Brutus 
preserves the life of Antony, who soon finds means to 
excite the populace in his favor, and expel the con- 
spirators from Rome. The endeavors of this profligate 
man to succeed to the despotism of his late master 
prove unsuccessful ; and he is reluctantly compelled to 
admit Octavius Caesar, and a powerful general named 
Lepidus, to a share of the government, with whom a 
triumvirate is at length formed. After issuing a 
sanguinary proscription, in which Cicero is included, 
and witnessing the destruction of their domestic ene- 
mies, Octavius and Antony embark for Macedonia, in 
pursuit of Brutus and Cassius, who risk a general 
engagement near Philippi, in which the republican 
army is totally routed ; while their daring leaders are 
reduced to the melancholy necessity of resorting to a 
voluntary death to escape the vengeance of their vic- 
torious opponents. 

Julius Caesar was a character worthy of the closest 
analytical investigation by the master-mind of Shake- 



JULIUS CJESAR. 165 

speare ; his attainment of power, and his great in- 
fluence with the Roman people, was entirely attribut- 
able to his lofty talents and indomitable courage ; his 
patience under toil, his industry in the pursuit of 
success, his wise deliberation, and the unshaken steadi- 
ness with which he carried out his wonderful resolu- 
tions, were the terror of his adversaries and the 
astonishment of the world. 

'Brutus,' says Mr. Drake, 'the favorite of the 
poet, is brought forward, not only adorned with all the 
virtues attributed to him by Plutarch, but in order to 
excite a deeper interest in his favor, and to prove that 
not jealousy, ambition, or revenge, but unalloyed 
patriotism was the sole director of his conduct. Our 
author has drawn him as possessing the utmost sweet- 
ness and gentleness of disposition, sympathizing with 
all that suffer, and unwilling to inflict pain, but from 
motives of the strongest moral necessity. He has 
most feelingly and beautifully painted him in the 
relations of a master, a friend and a husband ; his 
kindness to his domestics, his attachment to his friends 
and his love to Portia, demonstrating that nothing but 
a high sense of public duty could have induced him to 
lift his hand against Caesar. It is this struggle between 
the humanity of his temper, and his ardent and 
hereditary love of liberty, now threatened with extinc- 
tion by the despotism of Caesar, that gives to Brutus 
that grandeur of character, and that predominancy 
over his associates in purity of intention, which secured 
to him the admiration of his contemporaries, and to 
which posterity has done ample justice, through the 
medium of Shakespeare, who has placed the virtues 
of Brutus, and the contest in his bosom between 
private regard and patriotic duty, in the noblest light ; 



166 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

wringing, even from the lips of bis bitterest enemy, 
tbe fullest eulogium on tbe rectitude of bis principles 
and tbe goodness of bis heart.' 

Cassius is a man of more worldly wisdom than 
Brutus ; his great tact and knowledge of human 
nature is displayed in his remark to Antony, to 
reconcile him to tbe murder of Caesar : 

' Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
In the disposing of new dignities.' 

Many touches of this worldliness appear in him ; he is 
eminently fitted for a conspirator, but is still noble. 
We feel that Mark Antony, in bis hour of triumph, 
slanders the memory of Cassius, in attributing his 
conspiring against Caesar merely to envy. Tbe scene 
in tbe streets of Rome, where Cassius walks through 
the storm at night, amid the prodigies that foretell the 
death of the ambitious dictator, and bares bis ' bosom 
to the thunder-stone,' is the sublime of tragedy : it 
raises our expectations to tbe highest pitch, and is a 
fitting prelude to the approaching catastrophe ; when 
Csesar, surrounded by fierce looks and glittering swords, 
and gashed with three-and-twenty hideous wounds, 
falls dead on the base of his rival's statue, which is 
bespattered with his blood, and is supposed to look 
down, with grim satisfaction, on the death of his 
destroyer. The following scene, where Brutus in his 
orchard meditates the death of Caesar, is finer still : 
his struggle between tenderness and duty, his love for 
his friend and his love for his country, bis high bearing 
to his fellow-conspirators, where he deprecates the 
necessity of an oath to bind just men ' that have spoke 
the word and will not palter,' and his generous yield- 



JULIUS CLESAK. 167 

ing of the secret to his heroic and noble wife, are all 
pregnant with the vivid fire of genius, all point to 
Shakespeare as the master-bard, who with exquisite 
and unerring coloring has filled up the spirited sketches 
of Plutarch. 



L68 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'ANTONY AND 
CLEOPATRA.' 



The composition of this tragedy is assigned by Ma- 
lone to the date o( 1 60S, although no publication of it 
has boon hitherto discovered anterior to the folio edi- 
tion of 1623. Some oi' its incidents are supposed to 
have been borrowed from a production of Daniel, 
called 'The Tragedie of Cleopatra,' which was entered 
on the books of the Stationers' Company in the year 
1 593. The materials used by Shakespeare were derived 
from North's translation of Plutarch ; and he appears 
to have been desirous of introducing every incident 
and person which he found recorded ; for when the 
historian mentions his grandfather Lamprias as his 
authority for his account o( the entertainments of An- 
tony at Alexandria ; — in the old copy of this play, in a 
stage direction, in act i.. scene 2, Lamprias, Rannius 
and Lucilius enter with the rest, but sustain no share 
in the dialogue. Of the three plays founded by our 
author on the history of Plutarch this is the one in 
which he has least indulged his fancy. His adherence 
to his authority is minute, and he bestowed little pains 
in the adaptation of the history to the purposes of the 
drama, beyond an ingenious and frequently elegant 
metrical arrangement of the humble prose of North. 
The action comprises the events of ten years, com- 
mencing with the death of Fulvia, B. c. 40, and termi- 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATEA. 



169 



nating with the final overthrow of the Ptolemean dy- 
nasty, b. c. 30. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



friends of Antony. 



M. Antony, 

OCTAVIUS C^SAR, ! 
M. JEmL. Lepidus, 
Sextus Pompeius. 
Dojuitius Enobarbus, 

Ventidius, 
Eros, 

SCARUS, 

Dercetas, 
Demetrius, 
Philo, 
Mec^enas, 
Agrippa, 
dolabella, 
Proculeius, 
Thyreus, 
Gallus, 
Menas, 1 

Menecrates, > friends of Porupey. 
Varrius, ) 

Taurus, lieutenant-general to Caesar. 
Canidius, lieutenant-general to Antony. 
Silius, an officer in Ventidius's army. 
Euphronius, an ambassador from Antony to Caesar. 
Alexas, Mardian, Seleucus and Diomedes, at- 
tendants on Cleopatra. 
Soothsayer. Clown. 



friends to Caesar. 



170 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. 

Octavia, sister to Caesar, and wife to Antony. 

Chaumian, ) 1 _.. 

t r attendants to Cleopatra. 

Officers, Soldiers, Messengers and other Attendants. 
Scenes in Alexandria and several parts of the 
Soman empire. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The government of the eastern provinces, awarded 
to Antony in the threefold partition of the Soman 
empire, enables him to indulge without restraint his 
natural taste for prodigality and dissipation ; and the 
duties of his high office are sacrificed at the shriue of 
Cleopatra, whose influence is suspended by the mari- 
time superiority of Sextus Pompeius, which recalls 
her admirer to the capital. A family alliance is here 
contracted with Octavia, the sister of Caesar, who be- 
comes the wife of Antony, and accompanies her hus- 
band to his seat of government, alter the seeming 
restoration of public tranquility. The success of 
Caesar, who soon after defeats the forces of Pompey, 
and deprives Lapidus of his share in the triumvirate, 
at length alarms the effeminate Antony, who provokes 
the resentment of his powerful rival by his desertion 
of the amiable Octavia, and his renewed subjugation 
to the charms of the Egyptian queen. The hostile 
fleets encounter near the promontory of Actium, 
where the fortunes of Caesar prevail, in consequence 
of the perfidy of Cleopatra, who betakes herself to 
flight in the midst of the action ; and the infatuated 




DEATH OF CLEOPATRA. 
,-hih-,,,/ and Cieofiob-n.. .y,v ,'/; Scene //. 



ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 171 



Antony, following her example, is compelled to avoid 
impending captivity by resorting to the alternative of 
a voluntary death ; while Cleopatra is reserved to 
grace the triumph of her conqueror, whose vigilance 
she contrives to elude by depriving herself of life by 
the poison of asps, secretly conveyed to her in a basket 
of figs. 

In the play there are four characters which stand 
out prominently from the canvas— Cleopatra, Antony, 
Caesar and Enobarbus. Of Cleopatra, as painted by 
the pencil of history, what a soft glow of voluptuous 
languor is thrown around her, and with what irresisti- 
ble fascinations she is invested, the reader of the trag- 
edy can alone feel and appreciate. Great as her 
faults are, for her life is but a tissue of refined and 
poetical sensuality, such is her devotion to Antony, 
and so winning is the gigantic extravagance of her 
affection for him, that we not only forgive her errors, 
but admire and applaud the actor of them. 

Antony and Caesar are placed in strong contrast to 
each other ; the one brave, reckless and prodigal, the 
other cool, prudent and avaricious. ' Cassar gets 
money,' says Pompey, 'where he loses hearts. ' An- 
tony is a warrior and a prodigal, and Octavius a 
statesman, whose feelings are strictly under command. 
Something of predestination reigns through this play ; 
everything tends towards the downfall of Antony and 
the advancement of Caesar. 

Enobarbus. although an historical character, and to 
be found in Plutarch, does not there appear very 
prominently, and may, to no small extent, be called 
a creation of the pen of Shakespeare. He found the 
name in history, but not the man he pictured. Eno- 
barbus forms one of the rich sunlights of the picture ; 



172 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

his plain bluntness has all the cheering hilarity of 
comedy. But his jocularity would be out of place in 
the latter scenes of the tragedy ; how admirably does 
Shakespeare obviate this. The dotage and ill-fortune 
of Antony transform Enobarbus to a serious man, and 
finally corrupt this hitherto faithful soldier ; he de- 
serts his master and flies to the service of Caesar. 
The munificent Antony sends after him his chests and 
treasure, which, in the hurry of flight, he had left 
behind ; this act of kindness strikes the penitent fugi- 
tive to the heart, and wasting in grief, he goes forth 
to die; and alone, without the camp, breathing his 
deep sorrow to the cold moon, does Enobarbus end his 
life in the bitterness of despair. 

As his final ruin draws on, Antony is alternately 
'valiant and dejected;' looking upon his high rank 
and qualities, his unbounded but dazzling dissipation, 
his imperial generosity, great personal courage, and 
his gorgeous career ; when hearing of his death, we 
feel inclined to say with Cassar : 

'The dentil of Antony 
Is not a single doom : in the name lay 
A moiety of the world.' 

That of Cleopatra follows ; it is consistent with her 
brilliant and luxurious life ; she robs death of its 
hideousness, and, enveloped in her royal robes and 
crown, still radiant in that seductive beauty which 
subdued Cassar and ruined Anton}', she applies to her 
bosom the envenomed instrument of death, and tails 
into an everlasting slumber 'as sweet as balm, as soft 
as air,' where she yet looks : 

'As she would catch another Antony 
In her strong toil of arrace.' 




IACHIMO AND IMOGENE. 
( hi,,hr/n,c. .-jrt IL. Scene 7Z. 



CYMBELINE. 173 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'CYMBELINE.' 



This play is conjectured by Malone to have been 
written in the year 1609, although it was neither en- 
tered on the books of the Stationers' Company nor 
printed till 1623. The main incidents on which the 
plot rests occur in a novel of Boccace ; but our author 
is supposed to have derived them from an old story- 
book popular in that age, entitled 'Westward for 
Smelts.' All he knew of ' Cymbeline ' he acquired 
from Holinshed, who is sometimes closely followed, 
and sometimes strangely perverted. This king, ac- 
cording to the old historian, succeeded his father in 
the 19th year of the reign of Augustus ; and the play 
commences about the 24th year of Cymbeline' s reign, 
which was the 42d of the reign of Augustus and the 
16th of the Christian era ; notwithstanding which, 
Shakespeare has peopled Rome with modern Italians, 
Philario, Iachimo, etc. ' Cymbeline ' is said to have 
reigned 35 years, leaving at his death two sons, Gui- 
derius and Arviragus. 

This drama, if not in the construction of its fable, 
one of the most perfect of our author's productions, 
is, in point of poetic beauty, of variety and truth of 
character, and in the display of sentiment and emo- 
tion, one of the most interesting. 



174 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



CYMBELINE, king of Britain. 

Cloten, son to the Queen by a former husband. 

Leonatus Posthumtjs, a gentleman, husband to 

Imogen. 
Belarius, a banished lord, disguised under the name 

of Morgan. 

n ( sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the 

GUTDERIUS, ) .. „ , , -,«•,, 

. , -) names oi Polydore and Cadwal, sup- 

^ posed sons to Belarius. 
PHILARIO, friend to Postliunius, > 
Iachimo, friend to Philario, J Italmns - 
French Gentleman, friend to Philario. 
Caius Lucros, general of the Roman forces. 
Roman Captain. Two British Captains. 
Pis an 10, servant to Posthumus. 
Cornelius, a physician. 
Two Gentlemen. 
Two Jailers. 

Queen, wife to Cymbeline. 

IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen. 

Helen, woman to Imogen. 

Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, Appari- 
tions, a Soothsayer, a Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish 
Gentleman, Musicians, Omcers, Captains, Soldiers, 
Messengers and other Attendants. 

Scene, sometimes in Britain, sometimes in Italy. 



CYMBELINE. 175 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The Princeso Imogen, only daughter of Cymbeline, 
king of Britain, secretly marries an accomplished 
courtier, named Posthumus, whose presumption is 
punished hy a sentence of perpetual exile by the 
angry monarch. Deprived of the society of his amia- 
ble wife, the banished Posthumus repairs to Rome, 
where his confidence in the unshaken attachment of 
his princess is unhappily exchanged into a conviction 
of her infidelity by the false intelligence which he re- 
ceives from Tachimo, a perfidious Italian ; and the 
misguided husband immediately despatches orders to 
Pisanio, a faithful attendant residing in Britain, to 
put his mistress to death. Disregarding these cruel 
injunctions, Pisanio induces the unhappy lady to avoid. 
the malice of her stepmother, and the importunities 
of her son Oloten, by flight. Disguised in male attire, 
Imogen arrives near Milford-haven, where she pro- 
cures hospitable entertainment in the cottage of Be- 
larius, a banished nobleman in the garb of a peasant, 
who had revenged the injuries which he had formerly 
sustained at the hands of Cymbeline, by stealing his 
two infant sons, and educating them as his own in this 
retreat. Cloten shortly after arrives in pursuit of 
Imogen, and is slain by the eldest of the princes in 
single combat. In the meantime, Posthumus and 
Iachimo accompany a Roman army to Britain, where 
Imogen, under the assumed name of Fidele, become-; 
a page to the Roman general, who sustains a signal 
defeat, in which the intrepid valor of Belarius and the 
two princes, assisted by Posthumus in the disguise of 
20 



176 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

a British soldier, is chiefly conspicuous. Iachimo is 
taken prisoner, and makes a confession of his guilt to 
Cyinbeline ; Imogen is restored to her husband, Be- 
larius pardoned, and the two princes publicly recog- 
nized, while the queen dies in despair at the loss of her 
son and the disappointment of her ambitious projects. 

Our poet's object in writing this play was a noble 
one ; the vindication of the character of woman from 
the lewd aspersions of thoughtless and unprincipled 
men. It is not Imogen alone whom the Italian profli- 
gate, Iachimo, slanders — it is her whole sex ; of his 
attempt upon her chastity, he says to her husband : 
'I durst attempt it against any lady in the world.' 
Impossible as it may appear to pure and innocent 
minds, men still live who are ignorant and sensual 
enough to make the same vile boast. Among the 
pleasure-seeking gallants of that lascivious age, when 
seduction and duelling were by a large number of that 
class considered mere venial vices, if not graceful 
accomplishments, such unbelievers in the purity of 
woman were, perhaps, not uncommon ; and in this 
play the bard read them a stern reproof from the 
stage. 

Imogen is a personification of woman ; woman en- 
throned in the holy temple of her pure and chaste 
affections, rejecting the tempter of her honor with the 
bitterest scurn and loathing, and enduring wrong and 
suffering with the most touching patience and sweet- 
ness. The gentler sex should be always grateful to 
the memory of our great Shakespeare, for his genius 
did sweet homage to their character ; he invests his 
female creations with all that is most pure and gener- 
ous in humanity, picturing them, indeed, as beautiful 
to the eye, but a thousand times more acceptable to 



CYM DELINK 177 



the heart. There is a moral dignity about his women, 
a holy strength of affection, which neither suffering 
nor death can pervert, that elevates them above the 
sterner nature of man, placing them on an equality 
with angels. The adventures of Imogen are like a 
beautiful romance ; her flight after her banished hus- 
band, her wretchedness and forlorn condition when 
informed that he believes her false and has given 
order for her death ; her assumption of boy's attire, 
in which disguise she wanders among the mountains 
at point to perish from hunger ; her meeting with her 
disguised brothers in the cave ; her supposed death and 
recovery, and, finally, her discovery of her repentant 
husband, and throwing herself, without one reproach, 
upon his bosom — are all beautiful^ portrayed. Imo- 
gen is, indeed, a pattern of connubial love and chastity. 
Posthumus is an irritable and impatient character ; 
his love for Imogen is rather a selfish one, or he would 
not have been so easily persuaded that she was false ; 
it undergoes some purification in his trouble, and we 
scarcely sympathize with him until his repentance of 
his rashness. He then doubts his own worthiness, 
and feeling that he has wickedly presumed to direct 
the wrath of Heaven and punish its offenders, ex- 
claims : 

' Gods ! if you 

Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never 

Had lived to put on this.' 

A reflection we all might advantageously make, when 
contemplating revenge for any real or supposed injury. 
Iachimo is an unconfirmed villain, as dishonest as 
Iago, but not so devilish, for he has the grace to re- 
pent of his treachery ; he tries to compound with his 
conscience, and satisfy it with flinisey sophistries. 



178 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

He is ready to attest the truth of his false assertions 
with an oath, and does absolutely swear to Posthumus 
that he had the jewel from the arm of Imogen, which 
is literally true, but morally a perjury, because he stole 
the bracelet, and led the husband to suspect that it 
was given him in the gratification of an infamous 
affection. Iachimo equivocates ; Iago would have had 
no compunction about the matter, but have sworn to 
any falsehood, however injurious and diabolical, with- 
out mental reservation. Iachimo' s confession in the 
last scene is too wordy and tediously prolonged, and 
the humility of it is scarcely in accordance with his 
character, as portrayed in the earlier scenes of the 
play. 

These three characters are the principal ones of that 
group to which the attention is chiefly attracted ; Cyni- 
beline, himself, is represented as weak and vacillating — 
a mere tool of his wicked queen, who says : ' I never 
do him wrong, but he does buy my injuries ; ' rewards 
her for them, as if they were benefits : this woman is 
utterly villainous without any redeeming quality, un- 
less affection for her foolish and unprincipled son be 
called one ; it is seldom that Shakespeare draws such 
characters, for he loves rather to elevate than to de- 
press humanity, and to paint in sunbeams, than to 
people twilight with fomis of darkness. Perhaps she 
is introduced to bring the sweet character of the pure 
and loving Imogen into greater prominence by the 
power of contrast. The conduct of Cymbeline is un- 
accountable, save in a timid and wavering mind ; ■ 
having beaten the Romans by accident, he is amazed 
at his own temerity, and, in the very triumph of vic- 
tory, makes a peace, and promises to pay to Caesar 
the tribute which he had gone to war to avoid. 



CYMBELINE. 179 



Cloten has been said to be so singular a character, 
and possessed of qualities so contradictory, that he 
has been supposed to form an exception to Shake- 
speare's usual integrity in copying from nature. We 
cannot see in what particular he is irreconcilable to hu- 
manity ; he is a knave, a braggart, and a fool in most 
matters, but that is no reason why he should not pos- 
sess some shrewd common sense ideas occasionally. 
Nothing can be happier than his defiance of the Roman 
ambassador : — ' If Caesar can hide the sun from us 
with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will 
pay him tribute for light ; else, sir, no more tribute. ' 
Quaintly expressed, certainly, but unanswerable as an 
argument, it is not Cloten' s want of sense, but his 
outrageous vanity, that makes him ridiculous. He is 
not half so great a contradiction to himself as is Po- 
lonius in 'Hamlet,' and yet we can easily understand 
the peculiarities of tbat character ; the weakness of 
age consuming the strength of maturity, folly encroach- 
ing on wisdom ; in Cloten, it is folly consuming com- 
mon sense. Shakespeare requires no justification to 
the observing mind ; few men are either all wisdom or 
all folly ; the writings of the wisest man of whom we 
have any record are bitter condemnations of his own 
actions, eloquent laments for time misspent in volup- 
tuous abandonment. We doubt not that the poet drew 
Cloten from a living model ; singularities, in works of 
fiction, are generally copied from life — they are flights 
too bold for most authors to take without precedent. 
Respecting the character of Cloten, Hazlitt has re- 
marked ' that folly is as often owing to a want of proper 
sentiments as to a want of understanding.' 

In the delineation of the two princes, Guiderius and 
Arviragus, Shakespeare propagates a doctrine which 



180 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

will find many opponents in the present day : lie infers 
that there is an innate royalty of nature, a sovereignty 
in blood in those born of a kingly stock ; and the young 
princes brought up as simple rustics, and born of a 
weak uxorious father, are represented as feeling their 
high birth so strongly that it impels them to acts of 
heroism. Belarius says : 

' Their thoughts do hit 
The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them, 
In simple and low things, to prince it much 
Beyond the trick of others.' 

Their old protector is a courtier, turned hermit from 
an acute sense of wrong and a consequent disgust of 
civilized life, and his language is that of one who has 
seen the world to satiety : he is full of bitter reflections 
on princes and their courts, where oft a man gains ill 
report for doing well, and ' must court' sey at the cen- 
sure.' He bears some resemblance to the moralizing 
Jaques ; all natural objects suggest to him lofty and 
religious reflections, and the low-roofed cave which 
makes him bow as he issues from it to greet the rising 
sun, instructs him to adore its great Creator. Jaques 
had been a libertine in his youth, and Belarius is 
guilty of a dishonorable and wicked revenge by bring- 
ing up the sons of Cymbeline as rustics ; the father 
had injured him, but he had robbed the children of 
their birthright. 



njtfWMHMIMill 




PAINE. PINX. 



IRA ALDRIDGE AS AARON. 
Titles dndronicizs, Jlot IV, Seen e 71. 



TITUS ANDKONICUS. 181 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF l TITUS AN- 
DRONICUS.' 



This sanguinary and disgusting tragedy is still suf- 
fered to retain its place among the works of Shake- 
speare, although it is rejected by all the commentators 
and critics except Capell and Schlegel. The editors 
of the first folio edition, however, have included it in 
that volume, which implies that they considered the 
play as his production. George Meres enumerates it 
among his works in 1598, and this author was person- 
ally esteemed and consulted by our poet. It is now 
generally supposed that the present drama found ad- 
mission into the original complete edition of Shake- 
speare's works only because he had written a few lines 
in it, assisted in its revisal, or produced it on the 
stage. A tradition to this effect is mentioned by 
Ravenscroft in the preface to his alteration of this 
tragedy, as acted at Drury Lane in 1687, where he 
says, ' I have been told by some anciently conversant 
with the stage, that it was not originally Shakespeare's, 
but was brought by a private author to be acted ; and 
he gave only some master-touches to one or two of the 
principal parts.' The events of this drama are not 
of historical occurrence, but were probably borrowed 
from an old ballad on the same subject entered on the 
books of the Stationers' Company in 1593, about 
which period it appears to have been written. Mr. 



182 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Malone lias marked with, double inverted commas 
those passages in which he supposes the hand of 
Shakespeare may be traced. 

It is recorded of the poet Robert Burns that, ' when 
in his fifteenth year, Mr. Murdoch, his school-teacher, 
sometimes visited the family at Mount Oliphant, and 
brought books with him. On one occasion he read 
'Titus Andronicus' aloud, but Robert's pure taste rose 
in a passionate revolt and protest against its coarse 
cruelties and repugnant horrors. ' 

Alexander Smith's ''Life of Burns.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Saturninus, son to the late emperor of Rome, and 

afterwards declared emperor himself. 
Bassianus, brother to Saturninus ; in love with La- 

vinia. 
Titus Andronicus, a noble Roman, general against 

the Goths. 
Marcus Andronicus, tribune of the people and 

brother to Titus. 
Lucius, ^ 

t^- ' I sons to Titus Andronicus. 

Martius, [ 

Mutius, J 

Young Lucius, a boy, son to Lucius. 

Publius, son to Marcus the tribune. 

iEjilLius, a noble Roman. 

Alarbus, ") 

Chiron, >- sons to Tamora. 

Demetrius, j 



TITUS ANDKONICUS. 183 



Aaron, a Moor, beloved by Tamora. 
Captain, Tribune, Messenger, and Clown ; Ro- 
mans. 
Goths and Romans. 

Tamora, queen of the Gotbs. 
Lavinia, daughter to Titus Andronicus. 
Nurse, and a black Child. 

Kinsmen of Titus, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Sol- 
diers, and Attendants. 

Scene, Rome, and the country near it. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Titus Andronicus, a Roman general, in a successful 
campaign against the Goths, takes captive their queen 
Tamora with her three sons, and conveys them to 
Rome in triumph, where one of the youths is inhu- 
manly sacrificed by the conqueror at the tomb of his 
children who had been slain in battle. Eager for re- 
venge, the artful Tamora makes a favorable impression 
on the heart of the emperor Saturninus, and becomes 
the partner of his throne. By the contrivance of her 
two sons and a Moorish paramour named Aaron, she 
procures the assassination of Bassianus, the emperor's 
brother ; while his wife Lavinia, the daughter of 
Titus, is deprived of her tongue and hands by the 
Gothic princess, in order to prevent a discovery of the 
ill usage which she had previously sustained. Two 



184 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

sons of Titus shortly after suffer death for their sup- 
posed participation in the murder of Bassianus : the 
real perpetrators are at length discovered ; and the 
enraged father, having decoyed the young men to his 
house, puts a period to their existence, and serves up 
their mangled relics to their mother in a banquet. 
The unfortunate Lavinia falls by the hand of her 
father, who afterwards sacrifices the empress to his 
fury, for which he is slain by Saturninus, who in his 
turn loses his crown and life by the sword of Lucius, 
the only surviving son of Titus, who procures a repeal 
of his banishment by means of a Gothic army, and is 
proclaimed emperor by the senate and people. 
We forbear comment on this tragedy. 



PERICLES. 185 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'PERICLES.' 



The History of Apollonius, king of Tyre, contained 
in an old book of the fifteenth century entitled Gesta 
Eomanorum, appears to have formed the ground- 
work of the present drama. Gower, in his Confessio 
Amantis, has related the same story, the incidents and 
antiquated expressions of which may here be distinctly 
traced ; and hence, as Gower himself is introduced to 
perform the office of Chorus, it seems reasonable to 
conjecture that the work of the old poet has been 
chiefly followed. 

That the greater part of this production was the 
composition of Shakespeare is rendered highly prob- 
able by the elaborate disquisitions of Steevens and 
Malone, who have decided, from the internal evidence, 
that he either improved some older imperfect work, or 
wrote in connection with some other author ; that it 
contains more of his language than any of his doubted 
dramas ; that many scenes throughout the whole piece 
are his, and especially the greater part of the last 
three acts ; and that what he did compose was his 
earliest dramatic effort, being assigned to the year 
1590. The external evidences are, that Edward Blount, 
one of the printers of the first folio Shakespeare, 
entered 'Pericles' at Stationers' Hall in 1608, though it 
appeared the next year from another publisher, with 
Shakespeare's name in the title-page ; that it was 
acted at Shakespeare's own theatre, the Globe ; and 



186 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

that it is ascribed to him by several authors near his 
time. This play is not to be found in the folio of 1623, 
the editors having probably forgotten it until the book 
was printed, as they did 'Troilus and Cressida,' which 
is inserted in the volume, but not in the Table of Con- 
tents. 

The text of this play is so wretchedly corrupt, 
that it does not so much seem to want illustration as 
emendation, in which little assistance can be obtained 
from the inspection of the earliest printed copies, 
which appear in so imperfect a form that there is 
scarcely a single page undisfigured by the grossest 
errors. 

'On the whole,' says Mr. Steevens, 'were the in- 
trinsic merits of ' Pericles ' yet less than they are, it 
would be entitled to respect among the curious in 
dramatic literature. As the engravings of Mark An- 
tonio are valuable, not only on account of their beauty, 
but because they are supposed to have been executed 
under the eye of Rafaelle ; so ' Pericles ' will continue 
to owe some part of its reputation to the touches it is 
said to have received from the hand of Shakespeare.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Antiochus, king of Antioch. 
Pericles, prince of Tyre. 
Helicanus, ) _ , . _ 

Escanes, | two lords of Tyre. 

Simonides, king of Pentapolis. 
Cleon, governor of Tharsus. 



PEEICLES. 187 

Lysimachus, governor of Mitylene. 
Cerimon, lord of Ephesus. 
Thaliard, lord of Antiocli. 
Philemon, servant to Cerimon. 
Leonine, servant to Dionyza. 
Marshal. 

A Pander, and his Wife. 
Boult, their servant. 
Gower, as Chorus. 

Daughter of Antiochus. 

Dionyza, wife to Cleon. 

Thaisa, daughter to Simonides. 

Marina, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa. 

Lychorida, nurse to Marina. 

Diana. 

Lords, Ladies, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, 
Fishermen, and Messengers, etc. 

Scene, dispersedly in various countries. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



Antiochus, king of Antioch, in order to keep his 
daughter unmarried, subjects all suitors to the penalty 
of death who fail to expound a riddle which is recited 
to each : the beauty and accomplishments of the young 
princess overcome all their apprehensions, and prove 
fatal to many. At length, Pericles, prince of Tyre, 
explains the riddle to the monarch, who determines to 
reward his ingenuity by procuring his assassination. 



188 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

To avoid the impending danger, which he is unable to 
resist, and to preserve his territories from invasion, 
Pericles quits his kingdom, and arrives at Tharsus, 
where his timely interposition preserves Cleon and his 
subjects from the horrors of famine. He is afterwards 
driven by a storm on the shore of Pentapohs, where 
he mai'ries Thaisa, the daughter of king Simonides, 
who, iu accompanying her husband to his kingdom, is 
delivered of a daughter at sea, named Marina. The 
body of Thaisa, who is supposed to be dead, is enclosed 
in a box by her disconsolate husband, and committed 
to the waves, which drive it towards the coast of 
Ephesus, where Cerimon, a compassionate and skilful 
nobleman, succeeds in restoring the vital functions of 
the lady, who afterwards becomes the priestess of 
Diana. In the meantime, Pericles commits his infant 
to the custody of Cleon and his wife, and embarks for 
Tyre. At the age of fourteen, Marina excites the 
jealousy of her guardians by the superiority of her 
attainments, which obscures the talents of their own 
daughter : a ruffian is accordingly hired to deprive her 
of life, who is about to execute his orders, when she is 
rescued from destruction by pirates, who hurry her to 
Mitylene ; at which place she is recognized by her 
father, who, deceived by the representations of his 
perfidious friends, is bitterly lamenting her supposed 
death. By the directions of the goddess Diana, who 
appears to him in a dream, he repairs to Ephesus, 
where he recovers his long-lost Thaisa, and unites his 
daughter in marriage to Lysimachus, the governor of 
Mitylene ; while Cleon and his wife fall victims to the 
fury of the enraged populace. 




EDWIN FORREST AS KING LEAR. 
Kln.gZ&a,r, Jtci 7I~.Sce?te 17. 



ROMEO AND JULIET- 107 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'ROMEO AND 
JULIET.' 



The .story on which this play is founded is related 
as a true one in Girolamo 'Jo la Corte's ' History of 
Verona.' In 1562 -Mr. Arthur Brooke published a 
poem on 'the Tragical! Historic of Romeus and Ju- 
liott ; ' the materials for which he chiefly obtained from 
a French translation, by Boisteau, of an [talian novel 
by Lnigi da Porto, a gentleman of Ticenza, who died 
in 1529. A prose translation of Boisteau' s work was 
also published in 1567, by Painter, in his 'Palace of 
Pleasure ; ' and on the incidents of these two works 
Shakespeare is supposed to have constructed this 
interesting tragedy. Malone imagines that the present 
piece was designed in 1591, and finished in 1596; but 
Chalmers refers it to 1592, and Dr. Drake to L593. 
There are four early editions of it in quarto, namely 
those of J597, 1599, 1609, and one without date ; the 
first of which is less copious than the others; since 
each successive edition appears to have been revised, 
with additions to particular pa 



1 »EB SON'S R BPRES ENTED. 



Esoa/xs, prince of Verona, 
Paws, a young nobleman, kinsman to the prince. 
MONTAGUE, \ heads of two houses, at variance with 
Capdlet, { each other. 



198 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

Old Man, uncle to Capulet. 

ROMEO, son to Montague. 

Mercutio, kinsman to the prince, and a friend to 

Romeo. 
Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and a friend to 

Romeo. 
Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet. 
FRIAR Laurence, a Franciscan. 
Friar John, of the same order. 
BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo. 
Sampson, ) 

Gregory, } servants t0 Upulefc " 
ABRAM, servant to Montague. 
Apothecary. 
Three Musicians. 
Chorus. Boy ; Page to Paris ; Peter ; an Officer. 

Lady Montague, wife to Montague. 
Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet. 
Juliet, daughter to Capulet. 
Nurse to Juliet. 

Citizens of Verona ; several Men and Women, rela- 
tions to both houses ; Maskers, Guards, Watch- 
men, and Attendants. 

Scene, during the greater part of the play, in Verona ; 
once in the fifth act, at Mantua. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The violent feuds subsisting at Verona between the 
powerful families of the Capulets and Montagues form 



EOMEO AND JULIET. 199 

no obstruction to the establishment of a mutual attach- 
ment between Romeo, the only son of Montague, and 
Juliet, the heiress of the house of Capulet. A secret 
marriage appears to realize their fond anticipations of 
felicity, when Tybalt, a nephew of Capulet, rouses the 
indignation of the young bridegroom by the murder 
of his friend Mercutio, and falls a sacrifice to his 
resentment in single combat. This outrage subjects 
Romeo to a sentence of banishment by the prince ; 
while the unsuspecting relatives of Juliet, attributing 
her grief to the loss of her cousin, resolve to divert 
her melancholy by an immediate marriage with Count 
Paris. Finding her parents inexorable to every 
entreaty of delay, the unfortunate lady repairs to the 
cell of Friar Laurence, who had married her ; and 
receives from his hands a powerful soporific, causing a 
temporary suspension of the vital functions for two 
and forty hours. On the day appointed for the 
nuptials, Juliet is discovered stiff and cold, and is con- 
veyed, amidst the tears of her family, to the cemetery 
of her ancestors. The good friar, in the meantime, 
despatches a messenger to the residence of Romeo at 
Mantua, arranging his secret return to his native city 
before the expiration of Juliet's sleep. But the 
destiny of the lovers is misfortune ; the letter of Friar 
Laurence never reaches its destination ; and the dis- 
tracted husband, learning from another source the 
death of his mistress, hastens to Verona, forces an 
entrance in the obscurity of night to the monument of 
the Capulets, takes poison, and expires ; soon after 
which the friar arrives to await the recovery of Juliet 
from her trance, who, reviving to a sense of her hope- 
less woe, and seeing the dead body of Romeo stretched 
before her, finds means to terminate her existence by 



200 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

plunging the dagger of her husband into her heart. 
The rival families now too late bewail their miserable 
infatuation and, at the intercession of the prince, bury 
their animosities in a treaty of peace and alliance. 

No one can fail to admire the admirable construction 
of this tragedy of our poet ; had it been merely a 
love story, it would have run the risk of becoming 
tedious ; how artfully this is obviated ! The broils of 
the rival factions of Capulet and Montague, extending 
even to their humblest retainers ; the high spirits of 
Mercutio, with his lively wit and florid imagination ; 
the unconquerable pugnaciousness of Tybalt, ' the very 
butcher of a silk button ; ' the garrulous coarseness of 
the Nurse, and the peevishness of old Capulet; all 
these give a briskness and rapidity to the early 
scenes of the play, while the latter ones are, as they 
should be, almost confined to the afflictions of the two 
lovers. 

Romeo is an idealization of the early youth of 
genius ; he is, in truth, a poet in his love. We fancy 
that Shakespeare wrote it with a vivid recollection of 
some early attachment of his own ; and that Romeo 
utters the intense and extravagant passion which a 
gifted, but affectionate nature, such as Shakespeare 
might have given way to, before the judgment of 
maturer years had calmed down this frantic tyranny 
of love. 

The poet has been censured for making Juliet 
Romeo's second love, and Grarrick, in his adaptation 
of the play, cut out all allusion to Rosaline, whom 
Romeo first loves, with as much earnestness, and even 
more extravagance than that which he displays in his 
subsequent passion for Juliet. But his love for 
Rosaline was a mere creation of fancy, the feverish 




FROM A. PHTOTO GRAPH EY GTLBEP.T g- E 



MAURICE BARRYMORE AS ROMEO. 
Rori^eo and. Ji&Z-C&t, J2ctJf, Soe-n^aJI. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 201 

excitement of a nature, to which love was a necessity ; 
in her he worshipped an ideal of his own warm imagina- 
tion, which painted her as an angel amongst women. 
Shakespeare also indulges a gentle satire on the too 
positive convictions of youth. Romeo declares his 
unalterable fidelity to Rosaline, and trusts that when 
his eyes admit that they have seen her equal, his tears 
will turn to fire, and burn the ' transparent heretics ; ' 
and yet, in one brief hour from this time, even at the 
first glance, he transfers his love to Juliet. But we 
can easily forgive this fickleness ; we feel angry at the 
haughty Rosaline, who 'hath forsworn to love,' for 
her cold rejection of the passionate affection of Romeo, 
and pleased that he has found one who receives and 
returns his passion. His poetic and fervent affection 
deserves the love which the generous Juliet bestows 
upon him ; and how tender, how devoted, how utterly 
unselfish is her passion ; how modestly beautiful and 
delicate is her apology for the immediate confession 
of it. 

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face ; 
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, 
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. 
Fain would I dwell on form ; fain, fain deny 
What I have spoke. But farewell compliment ! 

There is no affected coyness, no frigid convention- 
ality in her demeanor ; she is a child of nature 
yielding to the sweet impulses of a first love, and pro- 
claiming her passion to the object of it with the 
unrestrained sincerity of an innocent and confiding 
spirit. Her impatience for the arrival of her husband 
on the evening of their nuptials has been censured as 
inconsistent with a becoming modesty, and not to be 



202 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

reconciled with the natural timidity of a young maiden, 
even of Juliet's warm and impetuous nature. Mr. 
Hazlitt has finely answered this objection ; he says — 
1 Such critics do not perceive that the feelings of the 
heart sanctify, without disguising, the impulses of 
nature. Without refinement themselves, they con- 
found modesty with hypocrisy.' How admirably also 
does Shakespeare provide for every improbable circum- 
stance, and not only takes away their improbability, 
but renders them highly consistent and natural ; thus 
when Juliet drinks the potion which is to consign her, 
a living woman, to a loathsome tomb, she is made to 
work upon her own imagination by a vivid picture of 
the horrors of her incarceration in the vault where the 
festering remains of all her 'buried ancestors are 
packed,' and at length swallows the potion in a 
paroxysm of terror. 

The naturalness of the incident is also heightened 
by the first introduction of the Friar gathering medic- 
inal herbs, and descanting upon their nature and 
properties. It is likely that he who was so well ac- 
quainted with the uses of ' baleful weeds and precious 
juic'd flowers' would employ them to carry out a 
difficult and dangerous stratagem. Shakespeare seldom 
omits an opportunity for the utterance of any in- 
structive truth or moral maxim ; he was the educator 
of his audiences, and it gives us a higher opiuion of 
the playgoers of his time to know that they were 
pleased with the introduction of severe moral truths 
into their amusements. The language of this Friar is 
full of them ; how fine is the reflection which crosses 
his mind when going forth in the early dawn to gather 
his medicinal herbs, and how naturally it arises out of 
the situation : 




RMEHREN,PtNX. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 
..id III.. So&ne-V. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 203 



For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, 
But to the earth some special good doth give ; 
Nor aught-, so good, but, strained from that fair use, 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. 

Mercutio is one of Shakespeare's peculiarities, one 
of the favorite children of his sportive fancy, bred in 
the sunshine of his finely balanced mind. The mer- 
curial and brilliant nature of the Veronese gentleman 
is full of that natural gladness, that 'overflow of 
youthful life, wafted on over the laughing waves of 
pleasure and prosperity,' which few authors besides 
Shakespeare impart to their creations. Well might 
Dr. Johnson say that his comedy seems to be instinct. 

It may certainly be wished that the language given 
to Mercutio was less coarse and sensual than it fre- 
quently is, but this licentiousness of conversation is 
consistent with the probable humor of a man in the 
summer of life, in perfect health, and devoid of all 
anxiety ; and, however repugnant to modern ideas of 
delicacy and gentlemanly breeding, is perhaps a picture 
of the discourse of the young nobles and gallants of 
Shakespeare's own time. 

An instance of our poet's power of strongly deline- 
ating a character in a few lines, is to be seen in his 
introduction of the poor apothecary, who is as original a 
conception, and during his brief scene, wins upon the 
sympathy of the audience, as much as the hero of the 
story himself. 

This, like most of our poet's tragedies, preaches a 
stern moral, it shows like a beacon-fire, to warn the 
young from unsanctioned love and idolatrous passion. 
Shakespeare probably intended to punish the lovers 
for the deception they both practised upon indulgent 



204 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

parents, while the parents are, through their children, 
scourged for their vain feuds and unreasonable hatred. 
The young die after the first brief hour of joy, the old 
live on, childless and desolate, to repent the blind 
malignity which has wrecked the happiness of them 
all. 




HAMLET AND OPHELIA. 
Ifarnlei. dct ///.. Seen*. I 



HAMLET. 205 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'HAMLET.' 



The French novelist Belleforest extracted from Saxo 
Grrammaticus, the Danish historian, the history of 
'Amleth,' and inserted it in the collection of novels 
published by him in the latter part of the sixteenth 
century ; whence it was translated into English under 
the title of ' The Historie of Hamblett,' a small quarto 
volume printed in black letter, which formed the sub- 
ject of a play previous to 1589 ; and on these materials 
our author is supposed to have constructed this noble 
tragedy, the composition of which is assigned by 
Malone to the date of 1600, while Mr. Chalmers and 
Dr. Drake contend that it was written as early as 1 597, 
on the authority of Dr. Percy's copy of Speght's 
edition of ' Chaucer,' which once belonged to Gabriel 
Harvey, who had written his name at both the com- 
mencement and conclusion, with several notes between ; 
among which was the following : The younger sort take 
much delight in Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis;' 
but his ' Lucrece,' and his tragedy of k Hamlet, Prince 
of Denmarke,' have it in them to please the wiser sort, 
1598. The original composition of this play may, 
therefore, be placed in 1597; and its revision, with 
additions, in 1000. The earliest entry of it at Sta- 
tioners' Hall is July 26, 1602 ; and a copy of the play 
in its imperfect state, dated 1603, and supposed to 
have been printed from a spurious original, was first 



206 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

discovered in the beginning of 1825. Another edition 
appeared in 1604, ' newly imprinted, and enlarged to 
almost as much again as it was ; ' the variations in 
which are both numerous and striking. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



courtiers. 



Claudius, king of Denmark. 

Hamlet, son to the former, and nephew to the present 

king. 
Polonius, lord chamberlain. 
Horatio, friend to Hamlet. 
Laertes, son to Polonius. 
Voltimand, 
Cornelius, 
Rosencrantz, 

GuiLDENSTERN, 

Osric, a courtier. 
Another Courtier. 
A Priest. 
Marcellus, ) 
Bernardo, J officers - 
Francisco, a soldier. 
Reynaldo, servant to Polonius. 
Captain. Ambassador. 
Ghost of Hamlet's father. 
Fortinbras, prince of Norwaj^. 

Gertrude, queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet. 
Ophelia, daughter of Polonius. 



HAMLET. 207 

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grave- 
diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants. 

Scene, Elsinore. 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



The sudden death of Hamlet king of Denmark, 
and the hurried and indecent nuptials of his widow 
with his brother and successor, fill the mind of the 
young prince Hamlet with grief and shame, which is 
speedily exchanged into a desire of revenge because 
of the appearance of his father's spirit, which informs 
the astonished youth that his end has been effected 
by the operation of poison, administered to him in his 
sleep by his perfidious brother. Doubtful of the truth 
of this supernatural communication, Hamlet counter- 
feits madness in order to conceal his designs, and 
invites the king and his court to witness the perfor- 
mance of a play which bears a striking similarity to 
the murder detailed by the Ghost. Struck by the 
reproaches of a wounded conscience, the guilty monarch 
betrays the emotions of his mind to the vigilance of 
Hamlet, who is prevented from the prosecution of his 
revenge by the death of Polonius, the father of 
Ophelia, who is commissioned by the king to lie in 
ambush during an interview between the prince and 
his mother: Hamlet, hearing a noise, and conjecturing 
that it proceeds from his concealed uncle behind the 
arras, stabs the old man to the heart; a mistake, 
which deprives Ophelia of reason, and causes her self- 
28 



20S COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

destruction ; 'while the unfortunate prince is banished 
to England by the king, who sends thither secret 
orders for his death on his arrival. The accomplish- 
ment of this cruel mandate is prevented by his cap- 
tivity by pirates, who land him on the Danish coast. 
In the meantime, Laertes, the son of Polonius, in his 
anxiety to revenge the deaths of his father and sister, 
tarnishes the natural generosity of his character by 
listening to the insidious suggestions of the king, who 
accomplishes the destruction of his nephew by moans 
of a poisoned weapon, with which he is wounded in a 
trial of skill in fencing with Laertes, to which the 
unsuspecting youth is invited ; and in which his anta- 
gonist also becomes the victim of his own fraud. 
Finding his end fast approaching, Hamlet inflicts on 
his uncle the just punishment of his atrocities ; and 
soon after expires, after witnessing the untimely death 
of his mother by poison. 

Mr. Steevens estimates the character of Hamlet 
very sternly, and considers him not only unamiable but 
criminal ; though he admits that the prince assassinated 
Polonius by accident, yet he states that he deliberately 
procures the execution of his two schoolfellows, who 
appear to have been ignorant of the treacherous nature 
of the mandate they were employed to carry ; his con- 
duct to Ophelia, deprives her both of her reason and 
her life, and he then interrupts her funeral, and 
insults her brother by boasting of an affection for his 
sister which he had denied to her face, and that he 
kills the king at last to revenge himself, and not his 
father. 

This summary of the character of Hamlet, though 
strongly stated, is not a false one ; his conduct is 
certainly indefensible unless we regard him as a man 




r -T< 'GRArH BY SMALL 



:harles fechter as hamlet. 



HAMLET. 209 

whose mind was to some extent overthrown by the 
peculiarity of the circumstances in which he was 
placed. This brings us to the oft disputed question, 
whether the madness of Hamlet was real or feigned — 
an attentive perusal of the tragedy will, we think, lead 
us to the conclusion that it was both one and the 
other. His mind at times trembled on the brink of 
madness, shaken but not overthrown. Not utterly 
perverted by mental disease, but very far from the 
exercise of its healthy functions, at times enjoying the 
perfect use of reason, and at others clouded and con- 
fused. Hamlet exaggerates his mental defects, and 
feeling his mind disordered, plays the downright mad- 
man. 

He, however, nowhere admits his insanity ; and his 
soliloquies certainly bear no appearance of wildness. 
So far from believing himself mad, he has great faith 
in his own intellectual resources : he feels that he is 
surrounded by spies — by men whom he will trust as he 
will ' adders fanged ; ' but, he adds — 

It shall go hard, 
But I will delve one yard below their mines, 
And blow them at the moon. 

This implies great confidence in his own acuteness ; 
and, to his mother, he most emphatically denies that 
he labors under mental disorder : he is, he says, 'not 
in madness, but mad in craft.' But we should not 
take the word of a madman for evidence respecting his 
own malady. Hamlet is rather cunning than wise — a 
quality not unfrequentty found in men suffering from a 
partial mental alienation. It should be recollected, 
also, that he has no reason for assuming insanity to his 
friend Horatio, whom he had trusted with his secret, 



210 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

and informed that he might think fit 'to put an antic 
disposition on.' Still, when discoursing very gravely 
with him in the church-yard, he suddenly breaks off 
from his subject, and asks, abruptly — ' Is not parch- 
ment made of sheep-skins?' A mind so flighty can- 
not be justly called sound. 

Dr. Johnson says, ' of the feigned madness of 
Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does 
nothing which he might not have done with the 
reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most 
when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which 
seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.' This is true 
enough ; Hamlet's assumed madness in no way assists 
in working out his revenge, but, on the contrary, 
nearly prevents its execution, for had the king suc- 
ceeded in his design in sending him to England, the 
pretended lunacy would have brought him to his 
death ; or it might very likely have led to his close 
confinement in Denmark. This absence, then, of a 
sufficient cause for feigning madness implies that 
some seeds of absolute insanity were the origin of it. 

Hamlet's conduct to Polonius is very unjustifiable, 
only to be accounted for by supposing that his mind is 
somewhat disturbed, though he may also dislike the 
old courtier because he is the counsellor and companion 
of the king ; but there is no treachery in the talkative 
old man. Polonius is very just and open ; when he 
discovers Hamlet's love for his daughter, he lays no 
plot to induce him to marry her, he will not play ' the 
desk or table-book,' but discountenances the attach- 
ment, and informs the king and queen of it. Foolishly 
talkative, he is still a very shrewd man, and though 
his wisdom is fast falling into the weakness and child- 
ishness of age, he has been a very acute observer. 




,i ■///. - ,i ■ )■,'/,. i-lit / 



OP1 



HAMLET. 211 

Dr. Johnson, who has given an admirable delineation 
of this character, says : ' Such a man is positive and 
confident, because he knows that his mind was once 
strong, and he knows not that it has become weak. 
Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the 
particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, 
and ignorant in foresight. While he depends upon his 
memory, and can draw from his repositories of knowl- 
edge, he utters weighty sentences and gives useful 
counsel ; but as the mind, in its enfeebled state, cannot 
be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to 
sudden dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order 
of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, 
till he recovers the leading principle and falls again 
into his former train. This idea of dotage encroaching 
upon wisdom will solve all the phenomena of the 
character of Polonius.' 

Ophelia is a gentle, affectionate character, drawn in 
and sucked down by the whirlpool of tragic events 
which surround her. Hamlet treats her very harshly, 
but, although this probably proceeds partly from his 
aberration of intellect, he is also influenced by a 
suspicion that she is acting treacherously towards him, 
and is an instrument in the hands of the king and her 
father for some unworthy purpose. 

It has puzzled many of the critics to account for the 
circumstance, that although Ophelia is so modest in 
her sanity that she never even confesses her love for 
Hamlet, we only gather from her actions that she 
loves him ; that when she becomes insane she sings 
snatches of obscene songs. Some have thought 
Shakespeare erred in this, but in the expression of 
human passions he never errs. It has been well sug- 
gested, that in madness people frequently manifest a 



212 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

disposition the very opposite of that which they 
possessed while in a state of sanity — the timid become 
bold, the tender cruel — and that Ophelia, in like man- 
ner, forsook her modesty of demeanor, and became the 
reverse of her natural character. Mr. Gr. Dawson 
thinks Ophelia, in her sanity, to be warm in her pas- 
sions — not a coarse sensualist, like the queen ; but 
what he calls sensuous — that way disposed, yet keeping 
a strict guard upon herself; and that when she be- 
comes mad that restraint is removed, and her character 
appears in its natural colors. 

Much controversy also has been expended upon the 
question whether the queen was an accessory to the 
murder of her husband ; her surprise on Hamlet's 
exclamation in her chamber, 'As kill a king,' has 
been quoted to exonerate her. This supposition is 
strengthened by the fact, that she exhibits no uneasi- 
ness or remorse at the play, as the king does, and that 
no remark ever takes place between her and her 
husband in relation to it. Her agony of mind when 
her son compares her two husbands, and so severely 
censures her, arises from the recollection of her adul- 
terous intercourse with Claudius during the life of the 
late king, and her hasty and incestuous marriage. 



OTHELLO. 213 



HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF 'OTHELLO.' 



A story in Cynthio's novels is the prototype whence 
our author derived his materials for this sublime and 
instructive tragedy, which is assigned by Malone, 
after considerable hesitation, to the date of 1604; 
while Dr. Drake and Mr. Chalmers conjecture it to 
be the production of a period as late as 1612 or 1614. 
This play was first entered at Stationers' Hall Oct. 6, 
1621, and appeared in quarto in the course of the 
following year; between which edition and the folio 
of 1623 many minute differences exist. 

'The beauties of this play,' says Dr. Johnson, 'im- 
press themselves so strongly on the attention of the 
reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illus- 
tration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, 
artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, 
ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, 
and obdurate in his revenge ; the cool malignity of 
Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, 
and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance ; 
the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit 
and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance 
in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can 
be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare's skill in 
human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any 
modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago 
makes in the Moor's conviction, and the circumstances 
which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully 



214 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

natural, that, though it will perhaps not he said of 
him as he says of himself, that he is 'a man not easily 
jealous,' yet we cannot but pity him, when at last we 
find him ' perplex'd in the extreme.' 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Duke op Venice. 

Brabantio, a senator. 

Two other Senators. 

Gratiano, brother to Brabantio. 

Lodovico, kinsman to Brabantio. 

Othello, the Moor. 

Cassio, his lieutenant. 

Iago, his ancient. 

Roderigo, a Venetian gentleman. 

Montano, Othello's predecessor in the government 

of Cyprus. 
Clown, servant to Othello. 
Herald. 

Desdemona, daughter to Brabantio, and wife to 

Othello. 
Emilia, wife to Iago. 
Bianca, a courtesan, mistress to Cassio. 

Officers, Gentlemen, Messengers, Musicians, Sailors, 
Attendants, etc. 

Scene, for the first act, in Venice ; during the rest 
of the play, at a seaport in Cyprus. 




MRS.F.BERNARD-J3EERE.AS DESDEMONA. 
OtheUo >/■■■■ Moor of Venice,. Act M. Scen^.IPT 



OTHELLO. 215 



COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAY. 



A Moorish general in the service of the Venetians, 
named Othello, by his valor and mental accomplish- 
ments, captivates the affections of Desdemona, the 
only daughter of an eminent senator, who exposes 
herself to the resentment of an incensed father by 
eloping with her lover and becoming his wife. These 
nuptials are no sooner solemnized than Othello is 
required by the senate to assume the command of 
Cyprus, whither he is followed by Desdemona, whose 
influence over her husband is exerted in behalf of 
Cassio, who has been deprived of his lieutenancy for 
an act of indiscretion, into which he has been be- 
trayed by the devices of Iago, in order that he may at 
once gratify his diabolical malignity and promote his 
personal advancement by instilling groundless suspi- 
cions into the ear of his commander of a criminal 
attachment subsisting between his wife and Cassio ; 
which he substantiates by so much seeming honesty 
of purpose and the production of such strong ex- 
ternal testimony, that the fierce desire of revenge in 
the bosom of the Moor stifles the generous sympathies 
of his nature, and he smothers his innocent wife, leav- 
ing the assassination of Cassio to be effected by the 
agency of his supposed friend, who however fails to 
accomplish his deadly purpose. The villany of Iago 
is at length brought to light by his wife Emilia, who 
is stabbed by her em*aged husband ; while the unfor- 
tunate Othello finds means to elude the vigilance of 
his attendants, and deprive himself of life by a con- 
cealed dagger. In the meantime, Cassio is advanced 



216 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 

to the government of Cyprus, and Iago is sentenced 
to expiate his crimes by a painful and protracted 
death. 

The Moor is amiable, brave, generous, and firm ; 
with him, what should be, must be : he will not per- 
mit his feelings to interfere with what he deems his 
duty. This feature of his character contributes mate- 
rially to the catastrophe of the tragedy : had he pos- 
sessed the irresolution of Hamlet, Iago's villany would 
have been discovered and Desdemona saved ; for Ham- 
let would always have been desiring more evidence, 
and even, when convinced of her falseness, Would 
have remained undecided how to act, and probably 
would have ultimately divorced her. But Iago calcu- 
lates on the hot Moorish blood which runs in Othello's 
veins ; he knows the impetuous fierce passions which 
lie latent in the soul of the victim of his fiendish de- 
ception, and practises upon them accordingly. Othello 
is very philosophical until his mind is poisoned by the 
insinuations of Iago ; he keeps a sort of military guard 
over his passions ; remember his calm even conduct 
when Brabantio approaches him in the street at night, 
followed by armed servants and public officers, whom 
he bids to seize the Moor ; he himself addressing him 
as 'vile thief,' and with other violent language. And 
before the duke he conducts his own cause with the 
subtilty and readiness of an advocate. What a touch 
of effective oratorical artifice is that where he tells the 
assembled senate that he had been bred in a camp, 
knew but little of the world, and therefore could not 
grace his cause by the arts of eloquence ; thus lead- 
ing them to the belief that he was incapable of defend- 
ing himself, and then delivering the most effective 
oration that could have been uttered in his behalf. 




EDWIN BOOTH AS IAGO. 
t .//,,//, ■. //, e . Woor ofVe* ice. Mot /.. ■ Vcsr>. e /// 



OTHELLO. 217 

But when the maddening conviction of his wife's 
treachery and shame is forced upon him, he breaks 
out into a paroxysm of frantic passion ; his habit of 
self-government is for a time annihilated, and the hot 
blood of the savage triumphs over the judgment of 
the man. He tries to escape from this dreadful con- 
viction : 

' By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.' 

But Iago draws the web gradually closer and more 
closely around him, and, with fiendish sagacity, keeps 
the subject in all its most hideous colors perpetually in 
his mind until the final perpetration of the terrible 
catastrophe of the drama. How painfully affecting is 
the anguish of soul with which he exclaims : ' But 
yet the pity of it, Iago ! — 0, Iago, the pity of it, 
Iago ! ' Well might Coleridge, with the true feeling 
of a poet, ask, as the curtain drops, which do we pity 
most, Desdemona, or the heart-broken Moor ? 

Iago is an utter villain, with no redeeming circum- 
stances — love, benevolence, sympathy for his race, 
every holy and exalted feeling have, in him, no ex- 
istence ; their place is occupied by a satanic selfish- 
ness and an absolute love of malice ; it is the fertile 
activity of his intellect, and the ingenuity of his 
wickedness, that alone make him endurable, other- 
wise we should shrink from him with loathing and 
disgust. He is the most villanous character ever 
drawn by Shakespeare, for Richard III. is cruel, to 
serve his ambition ; but Iago is cruel and fraudulent, 
because he finds a pleasure in fraud and cruelty ; he 
has no belief in honesty — does not think there is any 
such thing in the world; he entertains an obdurate 
incredulity as to the virtue of women, and has a per- 



218 COMPENDIUM OF THE PLAYS. 



feet faith that Desdemona will be seduced by Cassio, 
if he tempts her. He looks upon everything only in 
a gross and sensual light, and delights in painting the 
purest feelings in the most repulsive colors. This will 
explain why Shakespeare has put so many coarse and 
revolting speeches in his mouth. No character the 
great poet ever drew utters so many offensive expres- 
sions, and this was, doubtless, intended to exhibit the 
intense depravity of his mind. He has a natural turn 
for dishonesty and trickery, and would rather gain his 
ends by deception than by straightforward conduct. 
He is proud of his cunning, and witty also, full of that 
ill-natured sarcasm which delights in giving pain to 
others. 

The character of Cassio is admirably delineated — he 
is every way calculated to become an object of suspi- 
cion to the Moor — he is young, handsome and courte- 
ous, a scholar, and something of a poet, as his beauti- 
ful description of Desdemona will evidence. Even 
Iago admits, 'That he hath all those requisites in 
him that folly and green minds look after.' 

Poor Desdemona is the perfection of womanly gen- 
tleness and tenderness — a generous, romantic girl, full 
of kindness to every one, and by the very liberality 
of her nature, laying herself open to the aroused sus- 
picions of her husband. If she has a fault, it is that 
she is too passive. Observe the wide contrast between 
her character and that of Emilia, as finely portrayed 
in the third scene of the fourth act. Othello has de- 
sired his wife to retire and dismiss her attendant, and 
the two women are conversing before they separate for 
the night. Desdemona, in her simple purity, asks : 



OTHELLO. 219 



' Dost thou in conscience think, — tell me, Emilia, — 
That there be women do abuse their husbands 
In such gross kind.' 

Note the worldliness of the other's reply ; she would 
not do 'such a thing for a joint-ring,' but, etc. ; and 
Desdemona's sceptical rejoinder, 'I do not think there 
is any such woman.' The absolute purity of her mind 
will not permit her to believe in evil. How sweetly 
touching is her character compared with that of Iago — 
a seraph and a demon. 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS 

IN 

SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMATIC WORKS. 



-»-»- 



Aaron, 

Abbot of Westminster, 

Abergavenny, Lord, 

Abhorson, . 

Abram, 

Achilles, 

Adam, 

Adrian, 

Adriana, 

/Egeon, 

./Emilia, 

^Emilius, 

iEmilius Lepidus 

jEneas, 

Agamemnon, 

Agrippa, . 

Agrippa Menenius 

Ague-cheek,Sir Andrew 

Ajax, . 

Alarbus, 

Albany, Duke of 

Alcibiades, . 

Alencon, Duke of, 

Alexander, . 

Alexander Iden, 

Alexas, 

Alice, . 

Alonso, 

Amiens, 

Andromache, 

Andronicus, Marcus, 

Andronicus, Titus, 

AngeJo, 

Angelo, . 

Angus, 

Anne, Lady, 

Anne Bullen, . 

An tenor. 

Antigonus, 

Antiochus, . 

Autiocbus, . 

220 



A Moor, beloved by Tamora, 



An Executioner, 

•Servant of Montague, 

A Grecian Commander, 

Servant to Oliver, . 

A Lord of Naples, . 

Wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, 

A Merchant of Syracuse, 

An Abbess at Ephesus, . 

A Noble Roman, 

A Roman Triumvir, 

A Trojan Commander, . 

A Grecian General, . 

A Friend of Caesar, . 

Friend of Coriolanus, 

A Grecian Commander, . 
. Son of Tamora, 

. An Athenian General, . 

. Servant to Cressida, 

.. A Kentish Gentleman, . 

. Attendant on Cleopatra, 

. Attendant on Prin. Katharine, 

. King of Naples, 

. Attendant on Exiled Duke, . 

. Wife of Hector, 

Tribune, Brother of Titus, 
. General against the Gotlis, 
. A Goldsmith, . 
. Deputy of Duke of Vienna, 
. A Scottish Nobleman, 
. Widow of Edward i J iin. of Wales 
. Afterwards Queen, . 
. A Trojan Commander, 
. A Sicilian Lord, 
. King of Antioeh, . 
. Daughter of . . 



Titus Andronicua. 
Richard II. 
King Henry VIII. 
Measure for Measure. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
As You Like it. 
Tempest. 

Comedy of Errors. 
Comedy of Errors. 
Comedy of Errors. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Julius Csesar. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Coriolanus. 
Twelfth Night. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Titus Andronicus. 
King Lear, 
• Timon of Athens. 
King Henry VI., Part I. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
King Henry VI., Part IL 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
King Henry V. 
Tempest. 
As You Like it. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Oomedy of Errors. 
Measure for Measure. 
Macbeth. 

..King Richard III. 
King Henry VIII. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Winter's Tale. 
Penoies. 
Pericles, 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



221 



Antipholusof Ephesns, ) Twin Brothers; unknown 
Antipholusof Syracuse,! to each other, 



The Merchant of Venice, 
Usurping Duke of Milan, 
A Sea Captain, 
Brother of Leonato, 
Father of Proteus, . 
A Triumvir, 
A Churlish Philosopher, 



Antonio, 

Antonio, 

Antonio, . 

Antonio, 

Antonio, 

Antony, Marc, 

Aperhantus, 

Apothecary, An, 

Archb. of Canterbury, Cranmer, . 

Archb. of Canterbury, Cardinal Bouchier, 

Archb. of Canterbury, 

Archbishop of York, . 

Archbishop of York, . 

Archduke of Austria, 

Archibald, . 

Archidamus. 

Ariel 



Scroop, 

Thomas Rotheram, 



Earl of Douglas, 
A Bohemian Lord, . 
.An Airy Spirit, 
Armado, Don Adriano A Fantastical Spaniard, 
Arragon, Prince of, . Suitor to Portia, 
Arthur, . . . Elder Brother of King John, 
Artimidorus, . . A Sophist of Cnidos, 
Arviragus, . . . Son of Cymbeline, . 
Audrey, . . .A Country Wench, . 
Aufidius Tullus, . Volscian General, . 

Aunierle, Duke of . Son of Duke of York, 
Autolycus, . . .A Rogue, . 
Auvergue, Countess of, .... 



Bagot, 

Balthazar, . . 
Balthazar, . . 
Balthazar, . 
Balthazar, 
Banquo, 

Banished Duke, . 
Baptista, 
Bardolph, . 
Bardolph, . 
Bardolph, . 
Bardolph, Lord, . 
Barnardine, 
Basset, . 
Bassanio, . 
Bassanius, . 
Bastard of Orleans, 
Bates, . 

Beatrice, . 
Bean, Le, . 
Beaufort, Cardinal, 
Beaufort, Henry, 
Beaufort, John, . 
Beaufort, Thomas, 
Bedford, Duke of, 
Bedford, Duke of, 
Belarius, 
Belch, Sir Toby, 
Benedick, . . 



" Creature " of Richard II. , 

A Merchant, . 

Servant to Portia, . 

Servant to Don Pedro, . 

Servant to Romeo, . 

A General, . 

A Rich Gentleman of Padua, 
Soldier in King's Army, . 
A Follower of Falstaff, . 
Follower of Sir John Falstaff, 
Knemy to the King, 
A Dissolute Prisoner, . 
Of the Red Rose Faction, 
Friend of Antonio, . 
Brother of Satuminus, . 

Soldier in King's Army, . 

Niece of Leonato, . 
, A Courtier, . . . 
, Bishop of Winchester, . 
, Bishop of Winchester, 
, Earl of Somerset, . . 
, Duke of Exeter, . . 
, Brother of Henry V., 

Regent of France, . 
, A Banished Lord, . 
, Uncle of Olivia, 
. A Young Lord of Padua, 



I Comedy of Errors. 

. Merchant of Venice. 

. Tempest. 

. Twelfth Nipht. 

. MuehAdoAbout Nothing. 

. TwoGentlemenofVerona. 

. Antony and Cleopatra. 

. Timon of Athens. 

. Borneo and Juliet. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry II. 

. Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

. King Richard III. 

. King John. 

. Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

. Winter's Tale. 

. Tempest. 

. Loves Labour Lost. 

. Merchant of Venice. 

. King John. 

. Julius Caesar. 

. Cymbeline. 

. As You Like it. 

. Coriolanus. 

. King Richard II. 

. Winter's Tale. 

. King Henry VI., Parti. 

. King Richard II. 

. Comedy of Errors. 

. Merchant of Venice. 

. Much Ado About Nothing. 

. Romeo and Juliet. 

. Macbeth. 

. As You Like it. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

King Henry II. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

King Henry IV., Part II. 

Measure for Measure. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Titus Androi.iicus. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

King Henry V. 

Much AdoAbout Nothing. 

As You Like it. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

King Henry V. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

Cymbeline. 

Twelfth Night. 

M uch Ado A bout Nothing. 



2-2i 



Shakespeare's dramatic •works. 



Benvolio, . 

Berkley, Earl, 

Bernardo, . 

Bertram, , 

Bianca, 

Bianca, 

Bigot, Robert, 

Biondello, . 

Biron, 

Bishop of Carlisle, 

Bishop of Ely, 

Bishop of Ely, 

Bishop of Lincoln, 

Bishop of Winchester, 

Blanch, . 

Blouut, Sir James, 

Blunt, Sir Walter, . 

Bolingbroke, 

Bolingbroke, 

Bona, .... 

Borachio, . 

Bottom, . . 

Boult, 

Bourbon, Duke of, 

Bouchier, Cardinal, . 

Boyet, 

Brabantio, . 

Braken bury, Sir Robt., 

Brandon, . . . 

Brutus, Junius, . 

Brutus, Marcus, 

Buckingham, Duke of, 

Buckingham, Duke of, 

Buckingham, Duke of, 

Bullcalf, . 

Bullen, Anne, . 

Burgundy, Duke of, . 

Burgundy, Duke of, . 

Burgundy, Duke of, . 

Bushy, 

Butts, Dr.,. 

Cade, Jack, . 

Cadwal, 

Caesar, Octavius, 

Caithness, . 

Caius, Dr., . 

Cams, Lucius, . 

Caius M. Curiolanus, . 

Calchas, 

Caliban, 

Calphurnia, 

Cambridge, Earl of, . 

Camillo, 

Canipeius, Cardinal, . 

Canidius, 

Canterbury, Archb. of, 

Canterbury, Archb. of, 

Canterbury Archb. of. 



Friend of Romeo, 



An Officer, .... 
Count of Rousillon, 
Mistress of Cassio, . . 
Sister of Katherine, . ■ 
Earl of Norfolk, 
Servant of Lucentio, 
Attendant on King of Navarre 



John Morton, .... 

Gardiner, . . '. . 

Niece of King John, . 

Friend of Henry IV., .' 
A Conjurer, .... 
Afterwards Henry IV. . 
Sister of the French Queen, . 
Follower of Don John, . 
The Weaver, .... 
A Servant, .... 

Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Attendanton Princessol France 
A Senator, .... 
Lieutenant of the Tower, 

Tribune of the People, . 
A Roman Conspirator, 



Of the King's Party, 



A Recruit, 
Afterwards Queen, 



" Creature " of Richard II., . 
Physician to Henry VIII., 

A Rebel, 

Arviragus in Disguise, . 

A Triumvir, . . . . 

A Scottish Nobleman, . . 

A French Physician, . . 

General of Roman Forces, . 

A Noble Roman, 

A Trojan Priest, 

A Savage and Deformed Slave, 

Wife of Caesar, 

A Conspirator, 

A Sicilian Lord, 

Lieutenant-General of Antony, 
Cardinal Bouchier, . 



Crannier. . 



Romeo ana Juliet. 

King Richard II. 

Hamlet. 

All's Well that Ends WelL 

Othello. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

King John. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

King Richard II. 

King Henry V. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry VIII. 

King Henry VIII. 

King John. 

King Richard III. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

King Henry VI., Part IL 

King Richard II. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

Much AdoAbout Nothing 

MidsummerNightsDream 

Pericles. 

King Henry V. 

King Richard III. 

, Love's Labour Lost. 

Othello. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry VHI. 

Coriolanus. 

Julius Csesar. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

King Henry VIII. 

King Henry IV., Part IL 

King Henry VIII. 

King Henry V. 

King Henry VI., P..rt I. 

King Lear. 

King Richard II. 

King Henry VIII. 

King Henry VI., Part IL 

Cymbeline. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

Macbeth. 

Merry Wives of Windsos 

Cymbeline. 

Coriolanus. 

Troilus ai.d Cressida. 

The Tempest. 

Julius Cajsar. 

Kiug Henry V. 

Winter's Tale. 

King Henry VIII. 

Antony and Cleopatra, 

King Richard III. 

King Henry V. 

King Henry VIII. 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



223 



Capbis, 
Capucius, . 
Capulet, 

Capulet, Lady, . 
Cardinal Beaufort, 
Cardinal Bonehier, 
Cardinal Campeius, 
Cardinal Pandulph, . 
Cardinal Wolsey, 
Carlisle, Bishop of, , 
Casca, . . . . 
Cassandra, . 
Cassio, 
Cassius, 

Catesby, Sir William, 
Cato, Young, 

Celia 

Ceres, . 

Ceriraon, 

Charles, . . 

Charles, 

Charles VI., 

Charm ian, . 

Chatillori, . 

Chiron, 

Chorus, 

Christopher Sly, 

Christopher Urswiek, 

Cicero, 

Cinna, . . 

Cinna, 

Clarence, Duke of, 

Clarence, T., Duke of, 

CI audio, 

Claudio, 

Claudius, . 

Claudius, . 

Cieoraenes, . 

Clson, 

Cleopatra, . 

Clifford, Lord, . 

Clifford, Young, . 

Clitus, 

Cloteu, 

Clown, 

Clown, 

Cobweb, 

Colville, Sir John, . 

Cominius, . 

Conrade, 

Constable of France, . 

Constance, . 

Cordelia, 

Corin, 

Coriolanus, 

Coi'nelius, . 

Cornelius, . . ■ 

Cornwall, Duke of, 

Costard, 



A Servant, 

Ambassador from Charles V., 
At Variance with Montague, 
"Wife of Capulet, . . 
Bishop of Winchester, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, 

The Pope's Legate, . 



A Boman Conspirator, . 
Daughter of Priam, 

Lieutenant to Othello, . 

A Roman Conspirator, . 

Friend of Brutus and Cassius 

Daughter of Frederick, . 

A Spirit, .... 

A Lord of Ephesus, 

A Wrestler, 

The Dauphin, . 

King of France, 

Attendant on Cleopatra, 

Ambassador from France, 

Son of Tamora, 

As a Prologue, . , 

A Drunken Tinker, . 

A Priest, .... 

A Roman Senator, 

A Poet, .... 

A Roman Conspirator, 

Brother of Edward IV., . 

Son of Henry IV., . 

A Young Gentleman, 

A Young Florentine Lord, 

King of Denmark, . 

Servant of Brutus, . . 

A Sicilian Lord, 

Governor of Tharsus, 

Queen of Egypt, . . 

Of the King's Party, 

Son of Lord Clifford, 

Servant of Brutus, . 

Son of the Queen, . 

Servant to Mrs. Overdone, 

Servant to Olivia, . 

A Fairy 

Enemy to the King, 

General against the Volscians, 

Follower of Don John, . 



Mother of Arthur, 
Daughter of Lear, 
A Shepherd, 
A Noble Roman, 
A Courtier, 
A Physician, . 

A Clown, . , 



. Timon of Athens. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. Romeo and Juliet. 

. Romeo and Juliet. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. King John. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. King Richard II. 

. Julius Cassar. 

. Troilus and Cressida. 

. Othello. 

. Julius Caesar. 

. King Richard III. 

, Julius Caesar. 

. As You Like it. 

. The Tempest. 

. Pericles. 

. As You Like it. 

. King liciirj VI., Part I. 

. King Henry V. 

. Antony and Cleopatra. 

. King John. 

. Ticus Andronicus. 

. King Henry V. 

. Taming of the Shrew. 

. King Richard III. 

. Julius Caesar. 

. Julius Caesar. 

. Julius Cfesar. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry IV., Part II. 

, Measure for Measure. 

, MuchAdoAboutNothing. 

Hamlet. 
, Julius Caesar. 
, Winters Tale. 
, Pericles. 

, Antony and Cleopatra. 
, KingHenrvVI.Pts.II.III 
. King Henry VI., Part II. 
, Julius Caesar. 
, Cymbeline. 
, Measure for Measure. 
, Twelfth Night. 
, MidsummerNishtsDream 

King Henry IV, Part II. 

Cuiiolanus. 
, MuchAdoAboutNothing. 

King Henry V. 

King John. 

King Lear. 

As You Like it. 

Coriolanus. 

Hamlet. 

Cymbeline. 

King Lear. 

Love's Labour Lost. 



224 



Shakespeare's dramatic works. 



Count of Rovtsillon, . 
Countess of Auvergne, 
Countess of Rousillon, 
Court, 

Cranmer, . . 
Cressida, 
Cromwell, . 
Curan, 

Curio 

Curtis, 
Cymbeline, . 

Dame Quickly, . 
Dardanius, . 
Dauphin, The, . 
Davy, .... 
Decius Brutus, . 
Deiplmbus, . 
Demetrius, 
Demetrius, 
Demetrius, 
Dennis, 

Denny, Sir Anthony, . 
Dercetas, 
DesdemoDa, 
Diana, . . . 
Diana, . . 
Dick, . 
Diomedes, . 
Dioniedes, . . 
Dion, .... 
Dionyza, . „ 
Doctor Butts, 
Doctor Caius, . 
Dogberry, . 
Doll Tearsheet, . 
Dolabella, . 
Domitius Enobarbns, 
DonAdrianodeArmado 
Don John, . 
Don Pedro, 
Donaldbam, 
Dorc.-is, 

Dorset, Marquis of, . 
Douglas, Eai i of, 
Drouiio of Ephesus, | 
Dromio of Syracuse, ) 
Duchess of Gluster, 
Duchess of York, 
Duchess of York, 
Duke, The, 
Duke of Albany, 
Duke of Alencun, 
Duke of Aumerle, 
Duke of Bedi'ord, 
Duke of Bedford, 
Duke of Bourbon, 
Duke of Buckingham, 
Duke of Buckingham, 



Mother of Bertram, 
Soldier in King's Army, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Daughter to Ch ileas. 
Servant to Wolsey, . 
A Courtier, 
Attendant on Duke of Illy ria, 
Servant to Petruchio, 
King of Britain, 



Hostess of a Tavern, 
Servant to Brutus, . 
Louis, 

Servant to Shallow, 
A Roman Conspirator, 
Son to Priam, . 
Friend to Antony, . 
In Love with Hermione 
Son to Tamora, 
Servant to Oliver, . 



Friend to Antony, . 
Wife to Othello, 
Daughter to Widow, 

A Follower of Jack Cade, 
A Grecian Commander, 
Attendant on Cleopatra, 
A Sicilian Lord, 
Wife to Cleon, . 
Physician to Henry VIII 
A French Physician, 
A Foolish Officer, . 
A Bawd, . 
Friend to Csesar, 
Friend to Antony, . 
,A Fantastical Spaniard 
Bastard Brother to Don 
Prince of Aragon, . 
Sou to King Duncan, 
A Shepherdess, 



Archibald, 

Twin Brothers: Attendai 
thp two Antipholuses, 



Mother to King Edward 
Living in Exile, 



Son to Duke of York, 
Brother to King Henry 
Regent of France, . 



Of the King's Party, 



All's Well that Ends Well. 
King Henry VI., Part I. 
All's Well that Ends Well. 
King Henry V. 
King Henry VIII. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Lear. 
Twelfth Night. 
Taming of the Shrew. 
Cymbeline. 



KingHenryIV.,Pts.I<fcIL 

Julius Csesar. 

King John. 

King Henry IV., Part IL, 

Julius Ctesar. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

MidsummerNightsDreara 

Titus Andronicus. 

As You Like it. 

King Henry VIII. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

Othello. 

All's Well that Ends Well, 

King Henry VI., Part II. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Winter's Tale. 
Pericles. 

King Henry VIII. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Much AdoAbout Nothing. 
King Henry IV., Part IL 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
. Love's Labour Lost. 
Pedro, Much AdoAboutNothing. 
Much Ado A bout Nothing. 
Macbeth. 
Winter's Tale. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry IV., Part I. 

Comedy of Errors. 

King Richard II. 
King Richard II. 
King Richard III. 
As You Like it. 
King Lear. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 
King Richard II. 
King Henry V. 
King Henry VI., P.a't I. 
King Henry V. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry VI., Part L 



ts on \ , 



IV., 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



225 



Duke of Buckingham, 
Duke of Burgundy, 
Duke of Burgundy, 
Dnke of Burgundy, 
Duke of Clarence, 
Duke of Clarence, 
Duke of Cornwall, 
Duke of Exeter, 
Duke of Exeter, 
Duke of Florence, 
Duke of Gloster, 
Duke of Gloster, 
Duke of Gloster, 
Duke of Lancaster, 
Duke of Milan, . 
Duke of Norfolk, 
Duke of Norfolk, 
Duke of Norfolk, 
Duke of Norfolk, 
Duke of Orleans, 
Duke of Oxford, 
Duke of Somerset, 
Duke of Suffolk, 
Duke of Suffolk, 
Duke of Surrey, 
Duke of Venice, 
Duke of Venice, 
Duke of York, . 
Duke of York, . 
Duke of York, . 
Dull, . 
Dumain, 
Duncan, . . 



Earl Berkley, 

Earl of Cambridge, 

Earl of Douglas, 

Earl of Essex, . 

Earl of G I uster, . 

Earl of Kent, 

Earl of March, . 

Earl of March, . 

EarlofNorthumberland 

EarlofNortlmmberland Henry Percy 



Brother to King Edward IV., 
Son to King Henry IV., 

Uncle to King Henry V., 
Of the King's Party, 

Afterwards King Richard III., 
Brother to King Henry V., 
Uncle to King Henry VI., 
Uncle to King Richard II., 
Father to Silvia, 
Thomas Mowbray, . , 



Of -the Duke's Party, 



Of the King's Partv, 
Of the King's Party, 
Of the King's Party, 



Cousin to the King, 
Uncle to King Richard II., 
Son to King Edward IV., 
A Constable, . . 
Attendant on King of Navarre 
King of Scotland, . 



King Henry VIII. 
King Lear. 
King Henry V. 
King Henry VI., Parti. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
King Lear. 
King Henry V. 
King Henry VI., Pt. HI. 
All's Well tliat Ends Well. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry V. 
Heniry VI., Part III. 
King Richard II. 
Two Gentlemen ofVerona. 
King Richaixl II. 
King Richard III. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Henry V. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
Henry VI., Parts II.. ITT. 
King Henry VI., Part IT. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Richard II. 
• Merchant of Venice. 
Othello. 
King Henry V. 
King Richard II. 
King Richard III. 
Love's Labour Lost. 
Love's Labour Lost. 
Macbeth. 



King Richard II. 

A Conspirator, . . . King Henry V. 

Archibald King Henry IV., Part I. 

Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, . . King John. 

King Lear. 

King Lear. 

Edward Mortimer, . . . King Henry TV.. Part I. 
Afterwards King Edward IV., Henry VI., Part III. 
. King Richard II. 
. . . Henry IV., Parts I., II. 



EarlofNorthumbeiTaiid Enemy to the King, . . King Henry IV.. P-irc II. 
EarlofNortliumberland Of the King's Party, . . Henry VI., Part 111. 

Earl of Oxford. . King Richard III. 

Earl of Pembroke, . William Mareshall, . . . King John. 

Earl of Pembroke, . Of the Duke's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 

Earl of Richmond, . King Richard III. 

Earl of Salisbury, . William Longsword, . . King John. 

Earl of Salisbury, King Richard II. 

Earl of Salisbury, King Henry V. 

Enrl of Salisbury, . Of the York Faction, . . Henry VI., Parts I., II. 

Earl of Suffolk, . King Henry VI., Part I. 

Earl of Surrey, . . Son to Duke of Norfolk, . . King Richard III. 

Earl of Surrey, . ■ King Henry VIII. 

Earl of Warwick, . Of the King's Party, . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Earl of Warwick, . , King Henry V. 



226 



SHAKESPEARE S DRAMATIC WORKS. 



Earl of Warwick, . Of the York Faction, . . Henry VI., Pts. I. ,11., Til. 
Earl of Westmoreland, Friend to King Henry IV., . Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

Earl of Westmoreland, King Henry V. 

Earl of Westmoreland, Of the King's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 
Earl of Worcester, . Thomas Percy, . . . Henry IV. , Parts I. II. 

Earl Rivers, . . King Richard III. 

Edgar, . . . Son to Gloster, . . . King Lear. 

Edmund, . . . Earl of Rutland, . . . Henry VI., Part III. 
Edmund, . . . Bastard Son to Gloster, . . King Lear. 
Edmund Mortimer, . Earl of March, . . . King Henry IV., Part I. 

Edmund-Mortimer, . Earl of March, . . . King Henry VI., Part I. 

Edmund of Langley, . Duke of York, . . . King Richard II. 

Edward, . . . Prince of Wales, . . . King Richard III. 
Edward, . . . Son to Plauta'jenet, . . King Henry VI. , Part II, 

EdwardPrinceofWales,Son to King Henry VI., . Henry VI., Part III. 

Edward IV., King, King Richard III. 

Edward Earl of March, Afterwards King Edward IV., Henry VI., Part III. 
Egeus, . . . Father to Hermia, . . . AlidsummerNightsDream 

Eidamour, . . . Agent for Silvia, . . . Two Gentlemen ot'Verona. 
Elbow, . . .A Simple Constable, . . Measure for Measure. 
Eleanor, . . . Duchess of Gloster, . . King Henry VI., Part II. 

Elinor, . . . Mother to King John, . . King John. 
Elizabeth,. . . Queen to King Edward IV., . King Richard III. 
Ely, Bishop of, . . John Morton, .... King Richard III. 

Ely, Bishop of, . King Henry V. 

Emilia, . . . Wifetolago, .... Othello. 

Emilia, . . .A Lady, Winter's Tale. 

Enobarbus, Domitius, Friend to Antony, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 

Eros Friend to Antony, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 

Erpingham,SirThomas,Officer in the King's Army, . King Henry V. 
Escalus, . . . A Lord of Vienna, . . . Measure for Measure. 
Escalus, . . . Prince of Verona, . . . Romeo and Juliet. 
Escanes, . . .A Lord of Tyre, . . . Pericles. 
Essex, Earl of, . . Geoffrey Fitz Peter, . . King John. 
Euphronius, . . An Ambassador, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 
Evans, Sir Hugh, . A Welsh Parson, . . . Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Exeter, Duke of, . Uncle to Henry V., . . . King Henry V. 
Exeter, Duke of, . Of the King's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 
Exiled Duke, As You Like it. 

Fabian, . . . Servant to Olivia, . . . Twelfth Night. 

Falstaff, Sir John Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

Falstaff, Sir John, .Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Fang, . . . A Sheriff's Officer, . . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Fastolfe, Sir John, King Henry VI., Part I. 

Falconbridge, Lady, . Mother to Robert and Philip, King John. 
Falconbridge, Phiiip, Bastard Son to King Richard I., King John. 
Falcon bridge, Robert, Son to Sir Robert Falconbridge, King John. 

Feeble, . . . A Recruit King Henry IV., Part II. 

Feuton, . . . A Young Gentleman, . . Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Ferdinand, . . King of Nav.- ne, . . . Love's Labour Lost. 

Ferdinand, . . Son to the King of Naples, . The Tempest. 

Fitz-Peter, Geoffrey, . Earl of Essex, .... King John. 

Fitzwa'er, Lord, King Richard II. 

Flaminus, . . . Servant to Timon, . . . Tim on of Athens. 
Flavins, . . .A Roman Tribune, . . . Julius Cassar. 
Flavius, . . . Steward to Timon, . . . Timon of Athens. 
Fleance, . . . Sou to Baniiuo, . . . Macbeth. 
Florence, Duke of, . All's Well that Ends Well, 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



227 



Florence, Widow cf, 
Florizel, 
Fluellen, . 
Flute, 

Ford, Mr., . 
Ford, Mrs., 
Foi tin bras, 
France, King of, 
France, King of, 
France, Princess of, 
Francisca, . 
Francisco, . 
Francisco, . 
Frederick, . 
Friar John, 
Friar Lawrence, 
Froth, 



Son to Polixenes, 
Officer in King's Army, . 
The Bellowsmender, 
Gentleman dwelling atWindsor 



Prince of Norway, 



A Nun, .... 

A Soldier, 

A Lord of Naples, . 

Brother to the Exiled Duke, 

A Franciscan, . 

A Franciscan, . 

A Foolish Gentleman, 



Gadshill, . . . Follower of Sir John Falstaff, 
Gallus, . . . Friend to Cassar, 
Gardiner, . . . Bishop of Winchester, 

Gargrave, Sir Thomas, 

Geoffrey, Fitz-Peter, . Earl of Essex, . 
George, . . .A Follower of Cade, 
George, . . . Duke of Clarence, . 
George, . . . Duke of Clarence, . 
Gertrude, . . . Queen of Denmark, 
Ghost of . . . Hamlet's Father, 

Glandsi]ale,SirWilliam 

Glendower, Owen, 

Gloster, Duchess of, 

Gloster, Duke of, 

Gloster, Duke of, 

Gloster, Duke of, 

Gloster, Earl of, . .... 

Gloster, Pr. Humphrey Son to King Henry IV., 

Gobbo, Launcelot, . Servant to Shylock, 



Brother to King Henry V., . 
Uncle to King Henry VI., 
Afterwards King Richard III., 



Gobbo, Old, 

Goneril, 

Gonzalo, 

Gower, 

Gower, 

Gower, . 

Grandpree, 

Gratiano, . 

Gratiauo, . 

Green, 

Gregory, . 

Greniio, 

Grey, Lady, 

Grey, Lord, 

Grey, Sir Thomas, 

Griffith, . 

Grumio, 

Guiderius,- . 

Guildenstern 



Father to Launcelot Gobbo, . 

Daughter to King Lear, . 

Councillor of Naples, 

As Chorus, .... 

Of the King's Party, 

Officer in King's Army, . 

A French Lord, 

Brother to Brabantio, 

Friend to Antonio and Bassanio 

' ' Creature " to King Richard II. 

Servant to Capulet, 

Suitor to Bianca, 

Queen to King Edward IV., 



. A Conspirator, 

. Usher to Queen Katharine, 

. Servant to Petruchio, 

. Son to C.vmbeline, . 

. A Courtier, . 

Guildford, Sir Henry, 

Gurney, James, .' . Servaut to Lady Falconbridge, 



All's Well that Ends Well. 

Winter's Tale. 

King Henry V. 

MidsummerNightsDream 

.Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Hamlet. 

All's Well that Ends WelL 

King Lear. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

Measure for Measure. 

Hamlet. 

The Tempest. 

As You Like it. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Measure for Measure. 

King Henry IV., Part I. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

King Henry VIII. 

King Henry VI., Part I. 

King John. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

King Richard III. 

Hamlet. 

Hamlet. 

King Henry VI., Part L 

Kin- Henry IV., Part I. 

King Richard II. 

King Henry V. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

King Richard III. 

King Lear. 

King Henry IV., Part IL 

M erchant of Venice. 

Merchant of Venice. 

King Lear. 

The Tempest. 

Pericles. 

King Henry IV., Part II 

King Henry V. 

King Henry V. 

Othello. 

Merchant of Venice. 

King Richard II. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry V. 

King Henry VIII. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Cymbetine. 

Hamlet. 

King Henry VIII. 

King John. 



228 



SHAKESPEARE S DRAMATIC WORKS. 



Hamlet, 

Hareourt, . 

Hastings, Lord, 

Hastings, Lord, 

Hastings, Lord, 

Hecate, 

Hector, . 

Helen, . . 

Helen, 

Helena, . . 

Helena, . . 

Helenus, . , 

Helicanus, . 

Henry, 

Henry Bolingbroke, 



Prince of Denmark, 
Of the King's Party, . 
Enemy to the King, . 

Of the Duke's Party, 

A Witch, '.'.'.'.. 

Son to Priam, .... 
Woman to Imogen, 
Wife to Menelaus, . . 
A Gentlewoman, 
In Love with Demetrius, 
Son to Priam, .... 
A Lord of Tyrs, 
Earl of Richmond, . 
Afterwards King Henry IV., . 
Henry, Earl Richmond, A Youth, . • . 

Henry Percy, . . Son to Earl of Northumberland, 
Henry Percy (Hotspur), Son to Earl of Northumberland, 
Henry Percy, . . Earl of Northumberland, 
Henry, Prince, . . Son to King John, . 
Henry, Prince of Wales.Son to King Henry IV., . 

Henry IV., King, 

Henry V., King, 

Henry VI., King 

Henry VIII., King . 

Herbert, Sir Walter, 

Hermia, . . . Daughter to Egeus, 
Hermione, . . . Queen to Sicilia, 
Hero, . . . Daughter to Leonato, 

Hippolyta, . . Queen of the Amazons, . . 

Holofernes, . . A Schoolmaster, 

Horatio, . . . Friend to Hamlet, . . 

Horner, Thomas, . An Armourer 

Hortensio, . . . Suitor to Biauca, 

Hortensius, . . A Servant 

Hostess, . . . Character in the Induction, . 
Hostess Quickly, . Hostess of a Tavern, 
Hotspur (Henry Percy), Son to Earl of Northumberland 
Hubert de Bur^h, . Chamberlain to King John, . 
Hume, . . .A Priest, ..... 
Humphrey.D.ofGlosterUncle to King Henry VI., 
Humphrey, Pr.ofGlosterSon to King Henry IV., 
Huntsmen, . . Characters iu the Induction, . 



Iachimo, . . . Friend to Philario, . 

Iago, . . .1 . Ancient to Othello, . 

Iden, Alexander, . A Kentish Gentleman, . 

Imogen, . . . Daughter to Cymbeline, . 
Iras, . . Attendant on Cleopatra, 

Iris, . . . .A Spirit, .... 

Isabel, . . . Queen of France, 

Isabella, . . . Sister to Claudio, , 

Jack Cade, . . .A Rebel, King Henry IV, Part II, 

James Gurney, . . Servant to Lady Falconbridge, King John. 

Jamy, . . . Officer in King's Army, . . King Henry V. 

Jaquenetta, . . A Country Wench, . . . Love's Labour Lost. 

Jaques, . . . Son to Sir Roland de Bois, . As You Like it. 

Jaques, . • . An attendant on Exiled Duke, As You Like it. 



Hamlet. 

King Henry IV, Part II. 

KiiiS Henry IV, Part IL 

Henry Vl., Part III. 

iCing Richard III. 

Macbeth. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

Cymbeline. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

All's Well thnt Ends Well. 

MidsummerNights Dream 

Troilus and Cressida. 

Pericles. 

King Richard III. 

King Richard II. 

Henry VL, Part III. 

King Richard II. 

Henry IV., Parts T., II. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

King John. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II, 

Henry IV., Parts 1., II. 

King Henry V. 

Henry VL, Parts I., II. 

King Henry VIII. 

King Richard III. 

M idsummerNightsDream 

Winter's Tale. 

Much AdoAbout Nothing. 

MidsummerNightsDream. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

Hamlet. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Timon of Athens. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

Henry IV, Parts I., II. 

King John. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

King Henry IV, Part II. 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Cymbeline. 

Othello. 

Kin- Henry VI., Part II. 

Cymbeliue. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

The Tempest. 

King Henry V. 

Measux-e for Measure. 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IX 



229 



Jessica, . . 
Joan la Pucelle, 
John, . 

John, Don, . . 
John, Friar, . 
John, King, 
John of Gaunt, . 
John, Pr. of Lancaster, 
John Talbot, 
Jourdain, Margery, . 
Julia, . 

Juliet, 

Juliet, . . 

Julius Caesar, . 
Junius Brutus, . 
Juno, . 
Justice Shallow, 



Daughter to Shylock, 

Joan of Arc, .... 

A Follower of Cade, 

Bastard Brother to Don Pedro, 

A Franciscan 

Duke of Lancaster, . 

Son to King Henry IV., . 

Son to Lord Talbot, 

A witch, ..'..'. 

A Lady of Verona, . 



Daughter to Capulet, 



Tribune of the People, 
A Spirit, . ' . 

A Country Justice, . 



Merchant of 'Venice. 
King Henry VI., Parti. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
M uch Ado A bo ut Nothing. 
Borneo and Juliet. 
King John. 
King Richard II. 
Henry IV., Parts I., II. 
King Henry VI., Part I. 
King Henry VI., Part II. 
Two GentlemenofVerona. 
Measure for Measure. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Julius Caesar. 
Coriolanus. 
The Tempest. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 



Katharina, 

Katharine, 
Katharine, Princess, 
Katharine, Queen, 
Kent, Earl of, 



The Shrew Taming of the Shrew. 

Attendant on Princess of FranceLove's Labour Lost. 

Dan hter to Charles VI , . King Henry V. 

Wife to King Henry VIII., . King Henry VIII. 

King Lear. 

King Edward IV., King Richard III. 

King Henry IV., Henry IV., Parts I., II. 



King Henry V., 
King Henry VI., 
King Henry VIII., 
King John, 
King of France, 
King of France, 
King Richard II., 



King Henry V. 

HenryVI.,Pts.I.,II.,III. 

King Henry VIII. 

King John. 

All's Well that Ends WelL 

King Lear. 

King Richard II. 



King Richard III., King Richard III. 



Lady Anne, 

Lady Capulet, . 

Lady Falcon bridge, 

Lady Grey, 

Lady Macbeth, . 

Lady Macduff, . 

Lady Montague, 

Lady Mortimer, 

Lady Northumberland, 

Lady Percy, 

Laertes, . . 

Lafeu, 

Lancaster, Duke of, . 

Lancaster, Pr. John of 

Launce, 

Launcelot Gobbo, 

Lawrence, Friar, 

Lavinia, 

Lear, .... 

Le Beau, , . 

Lennox. . . 

Leonardo, . 

Leonato, 

Leonatus Posthumus, 

Leonine, , . , 



Widow to Edward Pr. of Wales 
Wife to Capulet, 
Mother to Robert and Philip, 
Queen to Edward IV., 
Wife to Macbeth, 
Wife to Macduff, . 
Wife to Montague, . 
Daughter to Glendower, 

Wife to Hotspur, 

Son to Polonius, 

An Old Lord, . 

Uncle to King Richard II., 

Son to King Henry IV. 

Servant to Proteus, 

Servant to Shylock, 

A Franciscan, . 

Daughter to Titus, . 

King of Britain, . 

A Courtier, 

A Scottish Nobleman, 

Servant to Bassanio, 

Governor of Messina, 

Husband to Imogen, 

Servant to Dionyza, 



King Richard III. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

King John. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

Macbeth. 

Macbeth. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

King Henrv IV., Part I. 

King Henry IV, Part II. 

King Henry IV., Part I. 

Hamlet. 

All's Well that Ends Well, 

King Richard II. 

Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

Two Gentlemen ofVerona. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Roineo and Juliet. 

Titus Andronicus. 

King Lear. 

As You Like it. 

Macbeth. 

Merchant of Venice. 

M lien Ado About Nothing. 

Cvmbeline. 

Pericles. 



230 Shakespeare's dramatic works. 

Leontes, . . . King of Sicilia, . . . Winter's Tale. 

Lepidus, M. iEmilius, A Triumvir, . . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 

Ligarius, . . .A Roman Conspirator, . . Julius Caesar. 

Lincoln, Bishop of, King Henry VIII. 

Lion, . . . .A Character in the Interlude, MidsnmmerNightsDream 

Lodovico, . . . Kinsman to Bnibantio, . . Othello. 

Longaville, . . Attendant on King of Navarre, Love's Labour Lost. 

Longsword, William, Earl of Salisbury, . . . King John. 
Lord, A, Character in the Induction, . Taming of the Shrew. 

Lord Abergavenny, . ...... King Henry VIII. 

Lord Bardolph, . . Enemy to the Kin<r, . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Lord Chief-Justice, . Of the King's Bench, . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Lord Clifford, . . Of the King's Party, . . Henry VI., Parts II., III. 

Lord Fitzwater, King Richard II. 

Lord Grey, . . Son to Lady Gre3', . . . King Richard III. 

Lord Hastings, . King Richard III. 

Lord Hastings, . . Enemy to the King, . . King Henry IV, Part IL 

Lord Hastings, . . Of the Duke's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 

Lord Lovel, . King Richard III. 

Lord Mowbray, . . Enemy to the King. . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Lord Rivers, . . Biother to Lady Grey, . . Henry VI., Part III. 

Lord Ross, . . King Richard II. 

Lord Sands, King Henry VIII. 

Lord Says, King Henry VI., Part II. 

Lord Scales, . . Governor of the Tower, . . King Henry VI., Part IL 

Lord Scroop, . . A Conspirator, . . . King Henry V. 

Lord Stafford, . . Of the Duke's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 

Lord Stanley, . King Richard III. 

Lord Talbot, . . Afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury, Kfiig Henry VI., Part L 

Lord Wilioughby, King Richard II. 

Lorenzo, . . . The Lover of Jessie i, . . Merchant of Venice. 

Louis, the Dauphin, King John. 

Louis, the Dauphin, King Henry V. 

Louis XI., . . . Kuig of France, . . . Henry VI., Part IIL 

Lovel, Lord, . . ...... King Richard III. 

Lovell, Sir Thomas, King Henry VIII. 

Luce Servant to LuMan:-, . . Comedy of Errors. 

Luceutio, . . . Son to Viucentio, . , . Taming of the Shrew. 

Lucetta, . . . Waiting-woman to J ulia, . TvvoGentlemenofVerona. 

Luciana, ... Sister to Adriana, . . , Comedy of Errors. 

Lucilius, . . . Friend to Brutus and Cassius, Julius Caesar. 

Lucilius, . . . Servant to Tinion, . . . Timon of Athens. 

Lucio, . . .A Fantastic, .... Measure for Measure. 

Lucius, . . . A Lord: Flatterer cf Timon, . Timon of Athens. 

Lucius, . . . A Servant, .... Timon of Athens. 

Lucius, . . . Servant to Brutus, . . . Julius Caesar. 

Lucius, . . . Son to Titus, .... Titus Andronicus. 

Lucullus, . . . A Lord: Flatterer of Timon, . Timon of Athens. 

Lucy, Sir William, King Henry VI., Part I. 

Lychorida, . . . Nurse to Marina, . . . Pericles. 

Lysander, . . .In Love with Hermione, . MidsnmmerNightsDream 

Lysimachus, . . Governor of Mitylene, . . Pericles. 

Macbeth, . . . General of the King's Army, . Macbeth. 

Macbeth, Lady, . . Wife to Macbeth, . . . Macbeth. 

Macduff, . . .A Scottish Nobleman, . . Macbeth. 

Macduff, Lady, . . Wiie to Macduff, . . . Macbeth. 

Macmorris, . . Officer in King's Army, . . King Henry V. 

Malcolm, . . . Son to King Duncan, . , Macbeth. 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



231 



us, 



in- 



rgue, 
lver, . 



Malvolio, . 

Maniillius, . 

Marc Antouy, 

Marcellus, . 

March, Earl of, 

Marcius, Youn: 

Marcus Androi 

Marcus Antoniu 

Marcus Brutus, 

Mardian, 

Mareshall, Will 

Margarelon, 

Margaret, . 

Margaret, . 

Margaret, . 

Margaret, Queen 

Margaret, 

Margery Jourdain, 

Maria, 

Maria, 

Mariana, 

Mariana, 

Marina, 

Marquis of Dorset, 

Marquis of Mon 

Martext, Sir 01 

Martius, 

Marullus, 

Mecsenas, 

Melun, 

Menas, 

Menecrates 

Menelaus, 

Menenius Agrippa, 

Menteith, 

Mercade, 

Mercutio, 

Messala, 

MetellusCimber 

Michael, 

Michael, Sir, 

Milan, Duke of, 

Miranda, 

Mr. Ford, . 

Mrs. Ford, . 

Mrs. Overdone 

Mr. Page, . 

Mrs. Page, . 

Mrs. Anne Page. 

Mrs. Quickly, 

Mrs. Quickly, 

Mrs. Quickly, 

Montague, . 

Montague, Marquis of, 

Montague, Lady 

Montano, . 

Montgomery, Sir 

Moonshine, 

Mopsa, 



John, 



Steward to Olivia, . 

Son to Leontes, . . 

A Triumvir, .... 

An Officer, .... 

Edward Mortimer, . 

Son to Coriolanus, . 

Tribune : Brother to Titus, . 

A Roman Triumvir, 

A Roman Conspirator, . 

Attendant on Cleopatra, 

Earl of Pembroke, . 

Bastard Son to Priam, . 

Daughter to Reignier, 

Queen to King Henry VI., 

Widow to King Henry VI., 

Attendant on Hero, 

A Witch, 

Attendanton Princessof France. 
Attendant on Olivia, 
Neighbour toWidow of Florence 
The Betrothed of Angelo, 
Daughter to Pericles, 
Son to Lady Grey, . 
Of the Duke's Party, 

A Vicar, 

Son to Titus, .... 
A Roman Tribune, 
Friend to Caesar, . . 
A French Lord, 
Friend to Pompey, . 
Friend to Pompey, . 
Brother to Agamemnon, 
Friend to Coriolanus, 
A Scottish Nobleman, 
Attendanton Princessof France 
Friend to Romeo, 
Friend to Brutus and Cassius, 
A Roman Conspirator, . 
A Follower of Cade, . 
Friend to Archbishop of York, 
Father to Silvia. . . 
Daughter to Prospero, 
Gentleman dwelling at Windsor 

A Bawd, 

Gen tleman dwelling at Windsor 

Daughter to Mrs. Page, . 
Hostess of a Tavern, . . 
A hostess : Wife to Pistol, . 
Servant to Dr. Cains, . . 
At variance with Capulet, 
Of the Duke's Party, 
Wife to Montague, . 
Othello's Predecessor in Office, 

A Character in the Interlude, 
A Shepherdess, , . . 



Twelfth Night. 
Winter's Tale. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Hamlet. 

King Henry IV., Part >. 
Coriolanus. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Julius Ciesar. 
Julius Caesar. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
King John. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
King Henry VI., Part I. 
King Henry VI., Part II. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry VI., Pt. III. 
Much AdoAboutNothing. 
King Henry VI., Part II. 
Love's Labour Lost. 
Twelfth Ni^ht. 
.All's Well that EndsWell. 
Measure for Measure. 
Pericles . 

King Richard III. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
As You Like it. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Julius Caesar. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
King John. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Coriolanus. 
Macbdth. 

.Love's Labour Lost. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Julius Caesar. 
Julius Caesar. 
King Henry VI, Part II. 
Henry IV, Parts I., II. 
TwoGentlemen ofVerona. 
The Tempest. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Measure for Measure. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Merry Wives of Windsor - . 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Henry IV, Parts I., II. 
King Henry V. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
Romeo and Juliet. 
Othello. 

Henry VI., Part III. 
M ids uni merNightsDream 
Winter's Tale. 



232 



BHAKESPEARES DRAMATIC WORKS. 



Morgan, 

i\i ooo, Prlnoa of, . 

Mortimer, Edmund, . 
Mortimer, Edmund, . 
Mortimer, Lady, 
Mortimer, Sir Hugh, 
Mortimer, Sir John, . 
Morton, John, . 
Morton, 

M , 

Moth, 

Mouldy, 

Mouuyoy, . 

Tilon bray, Thomas, . 

Jinn bi'ay, Lord, 

Mustardieed, 

Mutius 



Belai lui in disguise, 
Suitor to Portia, 
Ear] of Maroh, 
BarlofMaroh, 
i laughter to ( llendower 
Uncle to Duke of Vork, 
Unole to Duke of York, 
Bishop of Ely, . 
Servant to Northumber 
a Fairy, . 
Page to a rni.'iiio, 
"\ Reorult, 
a Prenuh Elernld, . 
Duke of Norfolk, . 
Enemy i>>> the King, 
a Fairy, . 
Son to Titus, . 



Intid, 



A Curate, 
Waiting-mold t" Portia, 

\ ( ; i .•. p.i n i ioininaudei . 



Of the Duke's Party, 



Nathaniel, Sir, . 
Neriasa, • . 
Nestor, 

Norfolk, Duke of, 
Norfolk, Dukeof, 
Norfolk, Dukeof, 

Northumberland, Ladj 

Northumberland.Eorlof 

Northuuibej iand.Earl of.Bnemj to the King, 
Northumberlaud.Earl of.Henry Percy, 
Northumberland,Earl of,Of the King's Party, 

Nurse of Juliet, . . 

Nym, .... Soldier In King's Army, . 
ls'j'iii f . . . . \ Follower of Falstaff, . 



Oberon, • • 
< loto\ la, . > 
Ootavius Ceesar, 
t lotuvlus • Itesor, 
OldQobbo, 
Oliver, . . 
Olivia, 
Ophelia, . 
Orlando, . 
Orleans, Duke of, 
Orsiuo, 

Orslo, . . • 
Oswald, . 
Othello, . 
Overdone, l\lra. . 
Owen Glendower, 
Oxford, Duke of, 
Oxford, Earl of, 

Page, Mr,, . . 
i':i ii, Mrs,, . 
Page, Mrs. Aiimi, 
Page, William, . 
Paudarui, ■ 
Paudulph, Cardinal, 
Pauthlno, . 



King of the Fairies, . 
Wiin to Antony, 
A Roman Triumvir, 
a llomau 'I'll u in \ lr, 
Father to I iaunoelot Qobbo, 
Son to sir Etovt Land de Bois, 
a nidi Countess, 
Daughter to Polonius, 
.Sun to Sir Rowland de Bol i, 

Duke" Of ll'l.vria, \ 

a Courtier, 

Steward to * louerU, . 

Tin i Mo or, 

a Bawdj .... 

Of blie King's Party, 



Gentleman dwelling at Windsi 

Daughter to Mrs. Page, . 
Si, n in Mr. Page, . 
Unole to Cressida, . 
The Pope's Legate, . 
Si rvaut to Antonio, • 



Cvmbeline. 
Merchant of Venloe, 
King Henry IV., Port [. 

King 11 v vi., Part I. 

King Henry IV., Part I. 
Henry VI , Part in. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
King Richard HI. 
King Henry IV.. Part IT. 
M IdsummerNightsDream 
Love's Labour Lost. 
King Henry IV., Part 11. 
King Henry V. 
Kiiik Richard 1 1. 
King Henry VI,, Part ir. 
MidsummerNigntsDreoia 
Titus Audronious, 

Love's Labour i lost, 
Merohant of Venloe, 
Trollus and Cressida 
King Rlohard [I. & [II. 
Henry VI., I'.ut. 111. 
King Henry VIII, 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
King Richard 11. 
King Henry IV., Pari n. 
KlngHenryIV.,Pts.I&II, 
Henry VI., Part n I. 
Romeo and ■! uliet, 
i\ Ing Henry V. 
Merry Wives of Windsor, 

MldsummerNlghtsDrean 

Antony and Cleopatra, 

,i iiiiim Csesor, 

Antony and Cleopatra, 

Merohant of Venice. 

,\:, Von i like It, 

Twelfth Night. 

Hamlet. 

\m Vim Like it. 

K in;' Henry V. 

Twelfth Niylit. 

Hamlet, 

King Lear, 

Othello. 

Measure for Mommro. 

King Henry IV., Parti 

Henry VI., Part 111. 

King Riohard III. 

,Merry Wives of Windsor, 
Merry Wives Of Windsor 
Merry Wives of Windsor, 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Trollus mid Cressida, 
King John. 

TnoliiintluuiauufVorouo, 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS TN 



233 



Paris, . 

Paris,. 

Parollei, 

Patience, . . 

Patroelus, . . 

Paulina. 

Pen iblossom, 

Pedant, 

Pedl'O, Don, 

Pembroke, Bar] of, 

Pi ni< ol e, Bar) of, 

Pen /, Henry. . 

Percy, Henry, . 

Percy, Henry (Hotspi 

Percy, Lady, 

Percy . Thomas, . 

Perd'ita, . 

Pi i icles, 

Peter, 

Peter, 

Peter of Pomf ret, 

Peto, . 

Fetruchio, . 

Phebe, 

Philario, 

Philemon, . 

Philip, 

Philip Falconbrldge, 

Philo, 

Fhiloitrate, 

Phflottu, 

Phryitiu. 

Pierce, Sir, •■ 

Pinch, 

Pindarus, . 

Pieanio, 

PI tol, 

Pistol, 

Pi itol, 

Plantagenet, Richard 

1'layorn, 



. Hon to Priam, . 
. A Soiing Nobleman, 
. A Follower or Bertram, . 
. \V < » 1 1 j .- 1 1 1 to Queen Katharine, 
. A < Irecian Commander, . 
. Wife to Autigonus, . 
. A Fairy, .... 
. Pi rsonatlng Vincentio, . 
. Prince of Aragon, . 
. William Mareshall, . 
. or the Duke's Party, 
Eari of Northumberland, 



Troilui and Cre»»ida, 
Romeo and Juliet, 
A.|l'» Well that Ends WelL 
Kin« Henry VI 1 1. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
Winter's Tain. 
MidsummerNightsDn am 
Taming of the Shraw, 
Much Ado About Nothing, 
King John, 
Henry VI., Pnrt I IT. 
Henry I v., Parts I,, if. 



PJayurs, . . 

Poin i, . 

Polixenes, . 

Polonius, . 

Polydore, . 

Pomp inn s ixtus> 

Popilius, Lena, . 

Portia, 

Portia, 

Po i humiu i ii onatus, 

Priam, . . 

Prince Henry, . 

l'i Humphrey oi Olosti 

l'i . John of Lancaster, 

l'i [nee "f \ rragon, 

l'i ince "i Morocco. 

Prince of Wales,' 

i'i ince of Wale , II »ury 



. SontoEarlof Northumberland.King Richard li. 
ir)Son co Earl of Northumberland, Henry IV., Parts I.. II, 
. Wife to Hotspur, . . . King Henry IV., Part I, 
, Earl of Worcester, . . . Henry IV., Parts I., II. 
. Daughter to Hermione, . . Winter's Tale, 
. Prince of Tyre, . . . I'uricloH. 

. A Friar, Measure fox Measure, 

. Horner's Man, . . . King Henry VI., Part II, 

. A Prophet King John. 

. A Follower of Sir John Falstaff.IIenry IV., Parts I., II. 
. Suitor to Katharina, . . Taming of the Shrew. 
. A Shepherdess, . . .Ah Von Like it. 
. Friend to Pes th 11 m us, . . Cymbeliue. 
. Servant to Cerimou, . . Pericles 
. King of France, . . . King John. 
. Bastard Son to King Richard I., King John, 
. Friend to Antony, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 
. Master of the Revels, . . MidsummerNightsDream 
. A Servant, .... Timon of Athens. 
. MintruHH to Alcibiades, . . Timon of Athens, 
. King Richard II. 
. A Schoolmaster and Conjuror, Comedy of Erroi . 
. Servant to C-issiue, . . . Julius Cassar. 
. Servant to Posthnmns, . . Cymbelfne. 
. A Follower of Sir John Fahtaff, Merry Wives of Windsor. 
. A Follower of Sir John Falstaff.King Henry IV., Part II. 
. A Soldier in King's Army, . King Henry V. 

Duke of STork, .... Henry VI., Pts, I. ,11., III. 

Characters in the Induction, . Taming of the Shrew. 

Characters in . . , .1 [amlet. 

A Follower nf Sir John Falstaff, Henry IV., Parts I., II. 

i ing of Bohemia, . . . Winter's Tale. 



Lord Chambei la 
Ghiiderius In Di guise, 
i / ii nd i" a ni ony, . . 
A Roman Senator, . 
A Rich l leiress, 
Wife to Brutus, 
II nsband to Imogen, 

Km- of Troy, . 

Son to King John, . 
r.Son to King Henrv IV., 
Son to King Henry IV., . 
Suitor to Portia, 
Suitor to Portia, 
Son to King Bdward IV., 
.Afterwards King Henry V. 



Hamlet. 

Cymbeline, 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

■) niiiiH Csesar. 

Merchant ol Venice. 

.iuiiiiH Cassar. 

i lymbel tie, 

1 - -iiii and Cressida, 

lung John. 

I illg I Liny IV., Part II. 

i ing Henry IV., Part II. 

1 m ii tut of Venice. 

lien h tut ol t ' i i 
King Richard III. 
King Henry IV., I'art IL. 



234 



Shakespeare's dramatic works. 



Princess Katharine, . 

Princess of France, 

Proculeius, 

Prophetess, 

Prospero, . 

Proteus, 

Publius, 

PubJius, . . 

Pueelle, Joan la. 

Puck, . 

Pyrainus, . . 

Queen, 

Queen Elizabeth, 

Queen Katharine, 

Queen Margaret, 

Queen of Richard II., 

Quickly, Mrs., . 

Quickly, Mrs., . 

Quickly, Mrs. 

Quince, 

Quintus, 



Daughter to King Charles VI. 

Friend to Cscsar, 

Cassandra, , 

Rightful Duke of Milan, 

A Gentleman of Verona, . 

A Roman Senator, . 

Son to Marcus, 

Joan of Arc, . 

A Fairy, 

A Character in the Interlude, 

Wife to Cymbeline, . 
Queen to King Edward IV., 
Wife to King Henry VIII., 
Wife to King Henry VI., 

Hostess of a Tavern, 
A Hostess : Wife to PistoL 
Servant to Dr. Caius, 
The Carpenter, 
Son to Titus, . 



Rambures, . 

Ratcliff, Sir Richard, 

Regan, 

Reignier, . . 

Reynaldo, . 

Richard, 

Richard, 



A French Lord, 



; Lear, 



Daughter to Kinj 
Duke of Anjou, 
Servant to Polonius, 
Son to Plantagenet, 
Afterwards Duke of Gloster, . 

Richard.DukeofGloster Afterwards King Richard III., 

Richard, Duke of York.Son to King Edward IV., 

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, . 

Richard II., King 



Richard III., King, 
Richmond, Earl of, 
Rivers, Ead, 
Rivers, Lord, 
Robert Bigot, 
Robert Falconbridge 
Robin, 



Afterwards King Henry VII., 
Brother to Lady Grey, 
Brother to Lady Grey, . 
Earl of Norfolk, 
Son to Sir Robert Falconbridge 
. A Page to Sir John Falstaff, . 



Rubin Goodfellow(Puck),A Fairy, 
P.oderigo, . . .A Venetian Gentleman, . 
Rogero, . . .A Sicilian Gentleman, 
Romeo. . . . Son to Montague, 

Rosalind, . . . Daughter to the Banished Duke, 
Rosaline, . . . Attendanton Princess of France, 
Rosencrantz, , . A Courtier, 
Ross, Lord, . . .... 

Ross, . . . .A Scottish Nobleman, 

Rotheram, Thomas, . Archbishop of York, 
Rousillon, Count of, . Bertram, . 
Rousillon, Countess of, Mother to Bertram, 
Rugby, . . . Servant to Dr. Caius, 
Rumour, . . . As a Prologue, 



, King Henry V. 
Love's Labour Lost. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Troilus and Cressida. 
The Tempest. 
Two Gentlemen ofVerona. 
Julius Csesar. 
Titus Andronicus. 
King Henry VI., Part I. 
MidsummerNiyhtsDream 
MidsummerNightsDreain 

. Cymbeline. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. Henry VI., Part III. 

. King Richard II. 

. Henry IV., Parts I.. II., 

. King Henry V. 

. Merry Wives of Windsor. 

. MidsummerNightsDream 

. Titus Andronicus. 

. King Henry V. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Lear. 

. King Henry VI., Part I. 

. Hamlet. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. Henrv Vt., Part III. 

King Richard III. 

King Richard III. 

Henry VI. ,Pts. I.,II.,III. 

King Richard II. 

King Richard III. 

King Richard III. 

King Richard III. 

Henry VI., Part IIL 

King John. 

King John. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

MidsummerNightsDieam 

Othello. 

Winter's Tale. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

As You Like it. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

Hamlet. 

King Richard II. 

Macbeth. 

King Richard III. 

All's Well that Ends Well. 

All's Well that Ends Well. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

King Henry IV., Part 11. 



Salanio, 
Salarino, 
Salerio, 



Friend to Antonio and Bassanio. Merchant of Venice. 
Friend to Antonioand Bassanio, Merchant of Venice. 
A Messenger Iruui Venice, . Merchant of Venice. 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



235 



William Longsword, 

Of the York Faction, 

Servant to Capulet, 

Emperor of Rome, . 

Governor of the Tower, 
Friend to Antony, . 
Archbishop of York, 
, A Conspirator, 



Salisbury, Earl of, 

Salisbury, Earl of, 

Salisbury, Earl of, 

Salisbury, Earl of, 

Sampson, . 

Sands, Lord, 

Saturninus, 

Say, Lord, . 

Scales, Lord, 

Scarus, 

Scroop, 

Scroop, Lord, 

Scroop, Sir Stephen, 

Sebastian, . 

Sebastian, . 

Seleucus, 

Sempronius, 

Servilius, . 

Sextos Pompeius, 

Seyton, 

Shadow, 

Shallow, 

Shallow, . . 

Shy lock, 

Sicinius Velutus. 

Silence, 

Silios, . . 

Silvia, 

Simonides, . 

Sinipcox, 

Simple, 

Sir Andrew Aenecheek, 

Sir Anthony Denny, . .... 

Sir Henrv Guildford, ■ 

Sir Hugh Evans, . A Welsh Parson . 

Sir Hugh Mortimer, . Uncle to Doke of York, 

Sir Homphrey Stafford, .... 

Sir James Blount, . . . . • 

Sir James Tyrrell, 

Sir John Coleville, 

Sir John Falstaff, 

Sir John Falstafif, . .... 

Sir John Fastolie, . .... 

Sir John Montgomery, . . • • 

Sir John Mortimer, . Uncle to Doke of York, 

Sir John Somerville, 

Sir John Stanley, 

Sir Michael, 

Sir Nathaniel, . 

Sir Nicholas Vaox, 

Sir Oliver Martext, 

Sir Pierce of Ex ton, 

Sir Richard Ratcliff, 

Sir Richard Vernon, . ■■".„,"" 

Sir Robert Brakenbury.Lieutenant of the Tower, 
Sir Stephen Scroop, . ■ 

SirThomasEipiJis h -' 1 ™.O fficer in Kings Army, 

Sir Thomas Gargrave, 

Sir Thomas Grey, . A Conspirator, 



Brother to the King of Naples, 

Brother to Viola, 

Attendant on Cleopatra, 

A Lord : Flatterer of Timon, . 

Servant to Timon, . 

Friend to Antony, . 

Officer attending on Macbeth, 

A Recruit, .... 

A Country Justice, . 

A Country Justice, . 

A Jew, 

Tribune of the People, . 

A Country Justice, . 

An Officer of Ventidius's Army, 

Daughter to the D nke of Milan, 

King of Pentapolis, 

An Impostor, . 

Servant to Slender, 



Enemy to the King, 



Friend to Archbishop of York, 
A Curate, . 



A Vicar, 



King John. 

King Henry V. 

Henry VI., Parts I., II. 

King Richard II. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

King Henry VIII. 

Titus Andronicus. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

King Henry VI., Part IL 

Antonv and Cleopatra. 

Henry" IV., Parts I., II. 

King Henry V. 

King Richard II. 

The Tempest. 

Twelfth Night. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

Timon of Athens. 

Timon of Athens. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

Macbeth. 

King Henry IV., Part II. 

King Henry IV., Part II. 

Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Coriolanus. 

King Henry IV., Part II. 

Antony and Cleopatra. 

T wo Gentlemen of Verona. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Twelfth Night. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Henry VIII. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
Henry VI., Part III. 
King Henry VI, Part II. 
King Richard III. 
King Richard III. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
Henry IV., Parts I., II. 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
King Henry VI , Part I. 

Henry VI., Part III. 

Henry VI., Part III. 
. Henry VI., Part III. 

King Henry VI., Part II. 

Henry VI., Parts I., II. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

King Henry VIII. 

As You Like it. 

King R chud II. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry IV., Part I. 

King Ricnard III. 

King Richard II. 

King Henry V. 

King Henry VI., Part U 

King Henry V. 



236 



SHAKESPEARE S DRAMATIC WORKS. 



Sir Thomas Lovell, . 

Sir Thomas Vaughan, 

Sir Toby Belch, . 

Sir Walter Blunt, 

Sir Walter Herbert, . 

Sir William Oateshy, . 

Sir William Glandsale, 

Sir William Lucy, 

Sir William Stanley, . 

Siward, 

Siward, Young, . 

Slender, 

Smith the Weaver, . 

Snare, 

Snout, 

Snug, .... 

Solinus, 

Somerset. Duke of, . 

Somerville, Sir John, 

Southwell, . 

Speed, 

Stafford, Lord, . 

Stafford, Si r Humphrey. 

Stan'ey, Lord, . 

Stanley, Sir John, 

Stanley, Sir William, 

Starveling, 

Stephano, . . 

Stephano, . . 

Strato, 

Suffolk, Duke of, 

Suffolk, Duke of, 

Suffolk, Earl of, 

Surrey, Duke of, 

Surrey, Earl of, . 

Surrey, Earl of, . 

Sylvius, . . . 

Talbot, John, . 

Talbot, Lord, . 

Tamora, . . 

Taurus, . . 

Tearsheet, Doll, 

Thaisa, . . 

Thaliard, . . . 

Thersit.es, . 

Theseus, . . . 

Thisbe. 

Thomas, 

Thomas, D. of Clarence 

Thomas Horner, 

Three Witches, . 

Thurio, 

Thyreus, . . 

Timandia, . 

Time, .... 

Timon. 

Titania, 

Titinius, 



Uncle to Olivia, 

Friend to King Henry IV 



Earl of Northumberland 
Sim to Siward. 
Cousin to Justice Shallo 
A Follower of Cade, 
A Sheriff's Officer, . 
The Tinker, . 
The Joiner, 
Duke of Ephesus, 
Of the King's Party, 



A Priest, . 

A Clownish Servant, 

Of the Duke's Party, 



The Tailor, 
A Drunken Butler. . 
Servant to Portia, . 
Servant to Brutus, . 
Of the Kind's Party, 



Son to Duke of Norfolk 
A Shepherd, 



Son to Lord Talbot, 

Afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury 

Queen of the Goths, 

Lieutenant-General to Cae: 

A Bawd, . 

Daughter toSimonides, 

A Lord of Antioch, . 

A Deformed Grecian, 

Duke of Athens, 

A Character in the Inter 

A Friar, . 

Son to King Henry IV., 

An Armourer, 

Rival to Valentine, 

Friend to Cajsar, 

Mistress to Alcihiades, 

As Chorus, 

A Noble Athenian, 

Queen of the Fairies, 

Friend to Brutus and Cassius, 



. Kin-.- Henrv VIII. 

. King Richard HI. 

. Twelfth Night. 

. Henry IV., Parts 1., II. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Richard III. 

. Kin- Henry VI., Part I. 

. King Henry VI., Part I. 

. Henry VI., Part III. 

. Macbeth, 

. Macbeth. 

. Merrv Wives of Windsor. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. King Henry IV., Part II. 

. MidsumnierNightsDivani 

. MidsumnierNightsDream 

. Comedv of Errors. 

. Henry VI. .Parts II., III. 

. Henry VI., Part III. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. Two Gentlemen ofVerona. 

. Henry VI., Part III. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. Henry VI., Part III. 

. MidsumiuerNightsDreaaj 

. The Tempest. 

. Merchant of Venice. 

. Julius Caesar. 

. King Henry VI., Part II. 

. King Henry VI II. 

. King Henry VI., Parti. 

. King Richard II. 

. King Richard III. 

. King Henry VIII. 

. As You Like it. 



King Henry VI., Part I. 
.King Henry VI., Part I. 
Titus Andronicus. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
Pericles. 
Pericles. 

Troilus and Cressida. 
MidsummerNiuhtsDream 
MidsummerNightsDream 
Measure for Measure. 
King Henry IV., Part II. 
Kin- Henry VI., Part II. 
Macbeth. 

Two Gentlemen ofVerona. 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
Timon of Athens. 
Winter's Tale. 
Timon of Athens. 
M n Isum merNightsDream 
Julius Goosar, 



INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN 



:>:;7 



Titlie Andronicus, . General against the Goths, . Titus Andronicus. 

Titus I.artius, . . General against the Volacians, Coriolanus. 

Touchstone, . . A Clown As You Like it. 

Tratiio, . . . Servant to Lucentio, . . Tarring of the Shrew. 

Travels, . . . Servant to Northumberland, . King Henry IV., Part IL 

Trebonins, . , . A Roman Conspirator, . . Julius Caesar. 

TrincuJo, . . .A Jester The TerapeBt. 

Troilus, . . . Son to Priam, .... Troilus and Cressida. 

Tubal, . .A Jew, Friend to Shylock, . Merchant of Venice. 

Tullus AufiV.ins, . Volsciau General, . . . Coriolanus. 

Tybalt, . . . Nephew to CapuJet, . . Romeo and Juliet. 

Tyrrel, Sir James, King Richard ill. 

Ulysses, . . . A Grecian Commander, . . Troiius and Cressida.. 
Ursula, . . . Attendant on Hero, , . Much AdoA bout No thing; 
Urswick, Christopher, A Priest, King Richard III, 

Valentine, . , . A Gentleman of Verona, . TwoGentle.menofVerona. 

Valentine, . . . Attendant on Duke of Illyria, Twelfth Night, 

Valeria, , . . Friend to Virgilia, . . . Coriolanus. 

Varrius, . . . Friend to Pompey, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 

Varrius, . . . Servant to Duke of Vienna, . Measure for Measure. 

Varro, . . . Servant to Brutus, . . . Julius Caesar. 

Vaughan, Sir Thomas, King Richard III. 

Vaux, King Henry VI., Part II. 

Vaux, Sir Nicholas, King Henry VIII. 

Veletus, Sicinius, . Tribune of the People, . . Coriolanus. 

Venice, Duke of, . ...... Merchant of Venice. 

Ventidius, . . . A False Friend, . . . Timon of Athens. 

Ventidius, . . . Friend to Antony, . . . Antony and Cleopatra. 

Verges, . . . A Foolish Officer, . . . Much AdoAbout Nothing. 

Vernon, . . . Of the White-Rose Faction, . King Henry VI., Part I. 

Vernon, Sir Richard, King Henry 1 V., Part I. 

Vicentio, . . . Duke of Vienna, . . . Measure for Measure. 

Vincentio, . . . An Old Gentleman of Pisa, . Tuning of the Shrew. 

Viola,. . . , In love with the Duke of Illyria,TweJfth Night. 

Violenta, . . . Neighbour to Widow of Florence, All's Well that Ends Well. 

Virgilia, . . . Wife to Coriolanus, . . . Coriolanus. 

Voltimand, . . A Courtier Hamlet. 

Volumnia, . . . Mother to Coriolanus, . . Coriolanus. 

Voluinnius, . . Friend to Brutus and Cassius, Julius Caesar. 

Wales, Henry, Pr. of, Son to King Henry IV., . . Henry IV., Parts I., II. 
Wales, Prince of, . Son to King Edward IV., . King Richard III. 

Walter Whituiore, King Henry VI., Part II. 

Wart A Recruit, . . . . King Henry IV., Part 1 1. 

Warwick, Earl of, . Of the King's Party, . . King Henry IV., Part II. 

Warwick, Earl of, King Henry V. 

Warwick, Earl of, . Of the York Faction, . . Henry VI.,Pr,s. I., II., 1 1 1. 

Westminster, Abbot of, King Richard II. 

Westmoreland, Karl of, King Henry V. . 

Westmoreland, Earl of, Friend to King Henry IV., . Henry IV., Parts I., 1 1. 
Westmoreland, Karl of, Of the King's Party, . . Henry VI., Part III. 

Whituiore, Walter, Kin» Henry VI., Part II. 

William, . . . A Country Fellow, . . . As You Like it. 

William Longsword, . Earl of Salisbury, . . . King John. 

William Mareshall, . Earl of Pembroke, . . . King John. 

William Page, . , Son to Mrs. Page, . . . Merry Wives of Windsoi. 

Williams, . , , Soldier in King's Army, . . King Henry V. 



238 



SHAKESPEARES DRAMATIC WORKS. 



Willouehby, Lord, 

Winchester, Bishop of, Gardiner, 

Wolsey, Cardinal, . ..... 

Woodville, . . . Lieutenant of the Tovrer, 
Worcester, Earl of, . Thomas Percy, . . 



York, Archbishop of, 
York, Archbishop of, 
York, Duchess of, 
York, Duchess of, 
York, Duke of, . 
"York, Duke of, . 
York, Duke of, . 
Young Cato, 
Young Clifford, . 
Young Maroius, 
Young Snviird, . 



Scroop 

Thomas Rotheram, . . 

Mother to King Edward IV., 
Cousin to tfee King, 
Uncle to King Richard II., 
Sun to King Edward IV., 
Friend to Brutus and Cassius, 
Son to Lord Clifford, . 
Son to Coriolauus, . . 
Sou to Siwai'd, » . . 



King Richard II. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Henry VIII. 
King Henry VI., Part L 
Henry VI., Parts I., II. 

Henry IV., Parts I., IL 

King Richard III. 

King Richard II. 

King Richard III. 

King Henry V. 

King Richard II. 

King Richard III. 

Julius Ctesar. 

King Henry VI., Part lit 

Coriolanus. 

Mac both. 



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